⁸ You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; ^9 [a]you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous^[b] God, bringing punishment for their parents’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation,

²¹ Then, taking the calf, the sinful object you had made, I burnt it and ground it down to powder as fine as dust, which I threw into the wadi that went down the mountainside.^(A)

^18 (A)But be careful not to covet or take anything that is under the ban;^[a] otherwise you will bring upon the camp of Israel this ban and the misery of it. ¹⁹ All silver and gold, and the articles of bronze or iron, are holy to the Lord. They shall be put in the treasury of the Lord.”

Chapter 7

Defeat at Ai. ¹ But the Israelites acted treacherously with regard to the ban; Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took goods that were under the ban,^(A) and the anger of the Lord flared up against the Israelites.

²⁰ Achan answered Joshua, “I have indeed sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: ²¹ Among the spoils, I saw a beautiful Babylonian mantle, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight; I coveted them and I took them. They are now hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

²⁴ Gideon went on to say, “Let me make a request of you. Give me, each of you, a ring from his spoils.” (Since they were Ishmaelites,^[a] the enemy had gold rings.) ²⁵ “We will certainly give them,” they replied, and they spread out a cloak into which everyone threw a ring from his spoils. ²⁶ The gold rings he had requested weighed seventeen hundred gold shekels, apart from the crescents and pendants, the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian, and apart from the trappings that were on the necks of their camels. ^27 (A)Gideon made an ephod out of the gold and placed it in his city, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted themselves there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.

^2 [a]He said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you pronounced a curse and even said it in my hearing—I have that silver. I took it. So now I will restore it to you.” Then his mother said, “May my son be blessed by the Lord!” ³ When he restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, she said, “I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my own hand on behalf of my son to make an idol overlaid with silver.”^{[b](A) 4} So when he restored the silver to his mother, she took two hundred pieces and gave them to the silversmith, who made of them an idol overlaid with silver. So it remained in the house of Micah.

¹³ He also deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an outrageous object for Asherah. Asa cut down this object and burned it in the Wadi Kidron.

Josiah’s Religious Reform. ⁴ Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, his assistant priests, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the objects that had been made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. These he burned outside Jerusalem on the slopes of the Kidron; their ashes were carried to Bethel.^(A)