Gideon tears down his household's Baal altar

The first assignment is the altar in his own yard

That night the LORD tells Gideon to take his father's bullock, throw down the altar of Baal that his father has, and cut down the grove beside it, the Asherah, a cult object, not a stand of trees. He is to build an altar to the LORD on the rock in the ordered place, and offer the second bullock with the wood of the Asherah he cuts down.

Gideon takes ten servants and does it by night, because he fears his father's household and the men of the city. Obedience here is real and fearful. It is not a lone-hero template, and it is not a license to vandalize another religion's property today.

The town wants Gideon dead; Joash tells Baal to plead for himself

In the morning the men of the city see the altar broken, the Asherah cut down, and the second bullock offered. They ask who has done it, learn it is Gideon, and tell Joash to bring out his son that he may die. Joash answers the crowd: Will ye plead for Baal? Will ye save him? He that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning. If he be a god, let him plead for himself, because one has cast down his altar.

That day Gideon is called Jerubbaal, Let Baal plead. Joash's argument exposes a god who needs human lynching to survive. The town's capital demand is not a model of religious discipline. Ancient covenant iconoclasm in Israel's household does not authorize modern private destruction or retaliatory killing.