39. So Gaal led the leading citizens of Shechem into battle against Abimelech.
40. But Abimelech chased him, and many of Shechem’s men were wounded and fell along the road as they retreated to the city gate.
41. Abimelech returned to Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his brothers out of Shechem.
42. The next day the people of Shechem went out into the fields to battle. When Abimelech heard about it,
43. he divided his men into three groups and set an ambush in the fields. When Abimelech saw the people coming out of the city, he and his men jumped up from their hiding places and attacked them.
44. Abimelech and his group stormed the city gate to keep the men of Shechem from getting back in, while Abimelech’s other two groups cut them down in the fields.
45. The battle went on all day before Abimelech finally captured the city. He killed the people, leveled the city, and scattered salt all over the ground.
46. When the leading citizens who lived in the tower of Shechem heard what had happened, they ran and hid in the temple of Baal-berith.
47. Someone reported to Abimelech that the citizens had gathered in the temple,
48. so he led his forces to Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and chopped some branches from a tree, then put them on his shoulder. “Quick, do as I have done!” he told his men.
49. So each of them cut down some branches, following Abimelech’s example. They piled the branches against the walls of the temple and set them on fire. So all the people who had lived in the tower of Shechem died—about 1,000 men and women.
50. Then Abimelech attacked the town of Thebez and captured it.
51. But there was a strong tower inside the town, and all the men and women—the entire population—fled to it. They barricaded themselves in and climbed up to the roof of the tower.
52. Abimelech followed them to attack the tower. But as he prepared to set fire to the entrance,
53. a woman on the roof dropped a millstone that landed on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.