His mother’s relatives reported the proposal to the leaders of Shechem. They were inclined to take Abimelech. “Because,” they said, “he is, after all, one of us.”

4-5 They gave him seventy silver pieces from the shrine of Baal-of-the-Covenant. With the money he hired some reckless riffraff soldiers and they followed along after him. He went to his father’s house in Ophrah and killed his half brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal—seventy men! And on one stone! The youngest, Jotham son of Jerub-Baal, managed to hide, the only survivor.

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