~ The End of Abimelech, son of Jerub-Baal ~

Next Abimelech went to Thebez
and besieged it and captured it.
Inside the city, however, was a strong tower,
to which all the men and women --
all the people of the city -- fled.
They locked themselves in
and climbed up on the tower roof.
Abimelech went to the tower and stormed it.
But as he approached the entrance to the tower
to set it on fire,
a women dropped an upper millstone on his head
and cracked his skull.

Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer,
"Draw your sword and kill me,
so they can't say, 'A woman killed him.'"
So his servant ran him through, and he died.
When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead,
they went home.
Thus God repaid the wickedness
that Abimelech had done to his father
by murdering his seventy brothers.
God also made the men of Shechem
pay for all their wickedness.
The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.

After the time of Abimelech
a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo,
rose to save Israel.
He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim.
He led Israel twenty-three years;
then he died, and was buried in Shamir.

(Judges 9:50-57; 10:1-2)