9:46 When all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem 3 heard the news, they went to the stronghold 4 of the temple of El-Berith. 5 9:47 Abimelech heard 6 that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem were in one place. 7 9:48 He and all his men 8 went up on Mount Zalmon. He 9 took an ax 10 in his hand and cut off a tree branch. He put it 11 on his shoulder and said to his men, “Quickly, do what you have just seen me do!” 12 9:49 So each of his men also cut off a branch and followed Abimelech. They put the branches 13 against the stronghold and set fire to it. 14 All the people 15 of the Tower of Shechem died – about a thousand men and women.
9:50 Abimelech moved on 16 to Thebez; he besieged and captured it. 17 9:51 There was a fortified 18 tower 19 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 20 down on his 21 head and shattered his skull. 9:54 He quickly called to the young man who carried his weapons, 22 “Draw your sword and kill me, so they will not say, 23 ‘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. 24
9:56 God repaid Abimelech for the evil he did to his father by murdering his seventy half-brothers. 25 9:57 God also repaid the men of Shechem for their evil deeds. The curse spoken by Jotham son of Jerub-Baal fell 26 on them.