² “Go and talk to the leaders of Shechem,” he requested, “and ask them whether they want to be ruled by seventy kings—Gideon’s seventy sons—or by one man—meaning me, your own flesh and blood!”^[a]

³ So his uncles went to the leaders of the city and proposed Abimelech’s scheme; and they decided that since his mother was a native of their town they would go along with it. ⁴ They gave him money from the temple offerings of the idol Baal-berith, which he used to hire some worthless loafers who agreed to do whatever he told them to.