47. but Abimelech found out where they were.
48. He led his troops to Mount Zalmon, where he took an axe and chopped off a tree branch. He lifted the branch on to his shoulder and shouted, “Hurry! Cut off a branch just as I did.”
49. When they all had branches, they followed Abimelech back to Shechem. They piled the branches against the fortress and set them on fire, burning down the fortress and killing about one thousand men and women.
50. After destroying Shechem, Abimelech went to Thebez. He surrounded the town and captured it.
51. But there was a tall fortress in the middle of the town, and the town leaders and everyone else went inside. Then they barred the gates and went up to the flat roof.
52. Abimelech and his army rushed to the fortress and tried to force their way inside. Abimelech himself was about to set the heavy wooden doors on fire,
53. when a woman on the roof dropped a large rock on his head and cracked his skull.
54. The soldier who carried his weapons was nearby, and Abimelech told him, “Take out your sword and kill me. I don't want people to say that I was killed by a woman!”So the soldier ran his sword through Abimelech.
55. And when the Israelite soldiers saw that their leader was dead, they went back home.
56. That's how God punished Abimelech for killing his brothers and bringing shame on his father's family.
57. God also punished the people of Shechem for helping Abimelech. Everything happened just as Jotham's curse said it would.