38. Zebul said to Gaal, “Where is your bragging now? You said, ‘Who is Abimelech that we should serve 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, and many of Gaal’s men were killed before they could get back to the city gate.
41. While 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. When Abimelech was told about it,
43. he separated his men into three groups and 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 struck them down.
45. Abimelech and his men fought the city of Shechem all day until they captured it and killed its people. Then he tore it down and threw salt over the ruins.
46. When the leaders who were in the Tower of Shechem heard what had happened to Shechem, they gathered in the safest room of the temple of El Berith.
47. Abimelech heard that all the leaders of the Tower of Shechem had gathered there.
48. So he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon, near Shechem. Abimelech took an ax and cut some branches and put them on his shoulders. He said to all those with him, “Hurry! Do what I have done!”
49. So all those men cut branches and followed Abimelech and piled them against the safest room of the temple. Then they set them on fire and burned the people inside. So all the people who were at the Tower of Shechem also died—about a thousand men and women.
50. Then Abimelech went to the city of Thebez. He surrounded the city, attacked it, and captured it.
51. But inside the city was a strong tower, so all the men, women, and leaders of that city ran to the tower. When they got inside, they locked the door behind them. Then they climbed up to the roof of the tower.
52. Abimelech came to the tower to attack it. He approached the door of the tower to set it on fire,