⁴⁷ Abimelech heard that all the ·leaders [leading citizens; lords] of the Tower of Shechem had gathered there. ⁴⁸ So he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon [^Cnear Shechem]. Abimelech took an ax and cut some ·branches [brushwood] 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 [brushwood] and followed Abimelech and piled them against the ·safest room [stronghold; inner chamber] of the temple. Then they set them on fire and burned ·the people inside [^Lthe stronghold over them]. So all the people who were at the Tower of Shechem also died—about a thousand men and women.