9:42 The next day the Shechemites 1 came out to the field. When Abimelech heard about it, 2 9:43 he took his men 3 and divided them into three units and set an ambush in the field. When he saw the people coming out of the city, 4 he attacked and struck them down. 5 9:44 Abimelech and his units 6 attacked and blocked 7 the entrance to the city’s gate. Two units then attacked all the people in the field and struck them down. 9:45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day. He captured the city and killed all the people in it. Then he leveled 8 the city and spread salt over it. 9
9:46 When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem 10 heard the news, they went to the stronghold 11 of the temple of El-Berith. 12 9:47 Abimelech heard 13 that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem were in one place. 14 9:48 He and all his men 15 went up on Mount Zalmon. He 16 took an ax 17 in his hand and cut off a tree branch. He put it 18 on his shoulder and said to his men, “Quickly, do what you have just seen me do!” 19 9:49 So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches 20 against the stronghold and set fire to it. 21 All the people 22 of the Tower of Shechem died – about a thousand men and women.
9:50 Abimelech moved on 23 to Thebez; he besieged and captured it. 24 9:51 There was a fortified 25 tower 26 in the center of the city, so all the men and women, as well as the city’s leaders, ran into it and locked the entrance. Then they went up to the roof of the tower. 9:52 Abimelech came and attacked the tower. When he approached the entrance of the tower to set it on fire, 9:53 a woman threw an upper millstone 27 down on his 28 head and shattered his skull. 9:54 He quickly called to the young man who carried his weapons, 29 “Draw your sword and kill me, so they will not say, 30 ‘A woman killed him.’” So the young man stabbed him and he died. 9:55 When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home. 31
9:56 God repaid Abimelech for the evil he did to his father by murdering his seventy half-brothers. 32 9:57 God also repaid the men of Shechem for their evil deeds. The curse spoken by Jotham son of Jerub-Baal fell 33 on them.