⁴ They gave him seventy silver coins from the temple of Baal-berith, which he used to hire some reckless troublemakers who agreed to follow him. ⁵ He went to his father’s home at Ophrah, and there, on one stone, they killed all seventy of his half brothers, the sons of Gideon.^[a] But the youngest brother, Jotham, escaped and hid.

⁶ Then all the leading citizens of Shechem and Beth-millo called a meeting under the oak beside the pillar^[b] at Shechem and made Abimelech their king.