3 So his mother’s brothers spoke all these things about him in the hearing of all the leaders of Shechem, and their hearts inclined toward Abimelek, for they said, “He is our brother.”
4 They gave him seventy silver coins from the temple of Baal-Berith. Abimelek hired unprincipled and undisciplined men, and they followed him.
5 He went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerub-Baal, on a single stone. Yet Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, survived because he hid himself.
6 All the leaders of Shechem and everyone from Beth Millo gathered together by the oak near the pillar in Shechem to make Abimelek king.
7 When Jotham heard this, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim. He raised his voice and called out, saying to them, “Listen to me, leaders of Shechem, so that God may listen to you!
8 The trees once went out to anoint a king over them. They said to the olive tree, ‘Rule over us!’
9 “Yet the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I stop making oil, by which God and men are honored, to go and sway over the trees?’