³ So his uncles went to the leaders of the city and proposed Abimelech’s scheme; and they decided that since his mother was a native of their town they would go along with it. ⁴ They gave him money from the temple offerings of the idol Baal-berith, which he used to hire some worthless loafers who agreed to do whatever he told them to. ⁵ He took them to his father’s home at Ophrah and there, upon one stone, they slaughtered all seventy of his half brothers, except for the youngest, Jotham, who escaped and hid.