38. Zebul said to Gaal, “Where is your bragging now? You said, ‘Who is Abimelech? Why should we obey him?’ You made fun of these men. Now go out and fight them.”
39. So Gaal led the men of Shechem out to fight Abimelech.
40. Abimelech and his men chased them. Many of Gaal’s men were killed before they could get back to the city gate.
41. Then Abimelech stayed at Arumah. Zebul forced Gaal and his brothers to leave Shechem.
42. The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields. Abimelech was told about it.
43. So he separated his men into three groups. And he hid them in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he jumped up and attacked them.
44. Abimelech and his group ran to the entrance gate to the city. The other two groups ran out to the people in the fields and killed them.
45. Abimelech and his men fought the city of Shechem all day. They captured it and killed its people. Then Abimelech tore down the city. And he threw salt over the ruins so nothing would ever grow there.
46. The people who lived at the nearby Tower of Shechem heard what had happened to Shechem. So the leaders gathered in the safest room of the temple of the god Baal-of-the-Agreement.
47. Abimelech heard that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem had gathered there.
48. So he and all his men went up to Mount Zalmon, near Shechem. Abimelech took an ax and cut some branches. Then he put them on his shoulders. He said to all his men with him, “Hurry! Do what I have done!”
49. So all those men cut branches and followed Abimelech. They piled the branches against the safest room of the temple. Then they set them on fire and burned the people in the room. So all the people who lived at the Tower of Shechem also died. There were about 1,000 men and women.