Abimelech, Judges 8 & 9

To me, Abimelech's story  is a cautionary tale of how a series of bad choices reap a caustic harvest.  Some of the bad seed surrounding his life precede him.  Abimlech's birth is the fruit of bad choices made by his father, Gideon.  Gideon almost gets it right--after his victory over the Midianites, he deflects the people's praise and directs them toward God:


The Israelites said, "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson. You have saved us from Midian's tyranny." Gideon said, "I most certainly will not rule over you, nor will my son. GOD will reign over you."
Then Gideon said, "But I do have one request...  -Judges 8:22-24


But the one request, which seems almost an afterthought, becomes the snare:


"...Give me, each of you, an earring that you took as plunder." Ishmaelites wore gold earrings, and the men all had their pockets full of them. They said, "Of course. They're yours!" They spread out a blanket and each man threw his plundered earrings on it.

The gold earrings that Gideon had asked for weighed about forty-three pounds--and that didn't include the crescents and pendants, the purple robes worn by the Midianite kings, and the ornaments hung around the necks of their camels. Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted itself there. Gideon and his family, too, were seduced by it.  -Judges 8:24-28

Gideon made the gold into a sacred ephod and put it on display in his hometown, Ophrah. All Israel prostituted itself there. Gideon and his family, too, were seduced by it. Midian's tyranny was broken by the Israelites; nothing more was heard from them. The land was quiet for forty years in Gideon's time.
Jerub-Baal son of Joash went home and lived in his house. Gideon had seventy sons. He fathered them all--he had a lot of wives! His concubine, the one at Shechem, also bore him a son. He named him Abimelech.
-Judges 8:27-31

So, although Gideon nods to God in the victory, his desire for gold (or recognition?) becomes the catalyst for the ephod, which opens up the doors to prostitutes and idol worship.   The "one request" becomes the snare, the seduction of the lot of them:

"But rather than being worn as a garment, Gideon’s golden ephod was apparently erected and became an idol. In some sense he may have usurped the function of the priest and/or established a rival worship center to the tabernacle. In the end Gideon seems to have returned to the syncretistic society out of which God had called him to deliver Israel."  -Believer's Bible Commentary

Gideon himself seemed to worship the Lord, but he clearly opened the doors for dysfunction and the bastardization of the faith.