Judges 9:42-57

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴² On the following day the people went out into the fields. When Abimelech was told, ⁴³ he took his troops and divided them into three companies and lay in wait in the fields. When he looked and saw the people coming out of the city, he rose against them and killed them. ⁴⁴ Abimelech and the company that was^[a] with him rushed forward and stood at the entrance of the gate of the city, while the two companies rushed on all who were in the fields and killed them. ⁴⁵ Abimelech fought against the city all that day; he took the city and killed the people who were in it, and he razed the city and sowed it with salt.^(A)

⁴⁶ When all the lords of the Tower of Shechem heard of it, they entered the stronghold of the temple of El-berith.^{(B) 47} Abimelech was told that all the lords of the Tower of Shechem were gathered together. ⁴⁸ So Abimelech went up to Mount Zalmon, he and all the troops who were with him. Abimelech took an ax in his hand, cut down a bundle of brushwood, and took it up and laid it on his shoulder. Then he said to the troops with him, “What you have seen me do, do quickly, as I have done.”^{(C) 49} So every one of the troops cut down a bundle and following Abimelech put it against the stronghold, and they set the stronghold on fire over them, so that all the people of the Tower of Shechem also died, about a thousand men and women.

⁵⁰ Then Abimelech went to Thebez and encamped against Thebez and took it.^{(D) 51} But there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the lords of the city fled to it and shut themselves in, and they went to the roof of the tower. ⁵² Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and came near to the entrance of the tower to burn it with fire. ⁵³ But a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.^{(E) 54} Immediately he called to the young man who carried his armor and said to him, “Draw your sword and kill me, so people will not say about me, ‘A woman killed him.’ ” So the young man thrust him through, and he died. ⁵⁵ When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they all went home. ⁵⁶ Thus God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers;^{(F) 57} and God also made all the wickedness of the people of Shechem fall back on their heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal.^(G)