²⁵ That same night the Lord said to him: Take your father’s bull, the bull fattened for seven years, and pull down your father’s altar to Baal. As for the asherah^[a] beside it, cut it down ²⁶ and build an altar to the Lord, your God, on top of this stronghold with the pile of wood. Then take the fattened bull and offer it as a whole-burnt sacrifice on the wood from the asherah you have cut down. ²⁷ So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord had commanded him. But he was too afraid of his family and of the townspeople to do it by day; he did it at night.