about with these faggots, they set them on fire, and threw in whatsoever
by nature caught fire the most easily: so a mighty flame was raised, and
nobody could fly away from the rock, but every man perished, with their
wives and children, in all about fifteen hundred men, and the rest
were a great number also. And such was the calamity which fell upon the
Shechemites; and men's grief on their account had been greater than it
was, had they not brought so much mischief on a person who had so
well deserved of them, and had they not themselves esteemed this as a
punishment for the same.

5. Now Abimelech, when he had aftrighted the Israelites with the
miseries he had brought upon the Shechemites, seemed openly to affect
greater authority than he now had, and appeared to set no bounds to his
violence, unless it were with the destruction of all. Accordingly he
marched to Thebes, and took the city on the sudden; and there being
a great tower therein, whereunto the whole multitude fled, he made
preparation to besiege it. Now as he was rushing with violence near the
gates, a woman threw a piece of a millstone upon his head, upon which
Abimelech fell down, and desired his armor-bearer to kill him lest his
death should be thought to be the work of a woman:--who did what he was
bid to do. So he underwent this death as a punishment for the wickedness
he had perpetrated against his brethren, and his insolent barbarity to
the Shechemites. Now the calamity that happened to those Shechemites was
according to the prediction of Jotham, However, the army that was with
Abimelech, upon his fall, was scattered abroad, and went to their own
homes.

6. Now it was that Jair the Gileadite, [16] of the tribe of Manasseh,
took the government. He was a man happy in other respects also, but
particularly in his children, who were of a good character. They were
thirty in number, and very skillful in riding on horses, and were
intrusted with the government of the cities of Gilead. He kept the
government twenty-two years, and died an old man; and he was buried in
Camon, a city of Gilead.

7. And now all the affairs of the Hebrews were managed uncertainly, and
tended to disorder, and to the contempt of God and of the laws. So
the Ammonites and Philistines had them in contempt, and laid waste the
country with a great army; and when they had taken all Perea, they were
so insolent as to attempt to gain the possession of all the rest. But
the Hebrews, being