Judges 8:8

‘And he went up thence to Penuel, and spoke to them in the same way, and the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered.'

He and his men received the same treatment at Penuel. Again the tribal covenant with Yahweh was ignored in the interests of safety. The only possible inference is that they too did not expect Gideon and his men to return alive. Both knew what they were doing and would not be surprised at Gideon's threats. In theory they would have agreed the rightness of them. The covenant with Yahweh was binding and the penalty for failing to respond to it was death. They knew they were breaching the covenant. This demonstrates how lax the response to the covenant was becoming east of Jordan.