The city of Shechem had to be taken, and Abimelech and his men were to do it.  I see the dust rolling up from their excited march.  I hear the shouting of the captains and the yell of the besiegers.  The swords clack sharply on the parrying shields, and the vociferation of two armies in death-grapple is horrible to hear.  The battle goes on all day, and as the sun is setting Abimelech and his army cry “Surrender!” to the beaten foe.  And, unable longer to resist, the city of Shechem falls; and there are pools of blood, and dissevered limbs, and glazed eyes looking up beggingly for mercy that war never shows, and dying soldiers with their head on the lap of mother, or wife, or sister, who have come out for the last offices of kindness and affection:  and a groan rolls across the city, stopping not, because there is no spot for it to rest, so full is the place of other groans.  A city wounded!  A city dying!  A city dead!  Wail for Shechem, all ye who know the horrors of a sacked town!

As I look over the city I can find only one building standing, and that is the temple of the god Berith.  Some soldiers outside of the city, in a tower, finding that they can no longer defend Shechem, now begin to look out for their own personal safety, and they fly to this temple of Berith.  They get within the door, shut it, and they say, “Now we are safe.  Abimelech has taken the whole city, but he can not take this temple of Berith.  Here we shall be under the protection of the gods.”  Oh, Berith, the god! do your best now for these refugees.  If you have eyes, pity them.  If you have hands, help them.  If you have thunderbolts, strike for them.

But how shall Abimelech and his army take this temple of Berith and the men who are there fortified?  Will they do it with sword?  Nay.  Will they do it with spear?  Nay.  With battering-ram, rolled up by hundred-armed strength, crashing against the walls?  Nay.  Abimelech marches his men to a wood in Zalmon.  With his ax he hews off a limb of a tree, and puts that limb upon his own shoulder, and then he says to his men, “You do the same.”  They are obedient to their commander.

Oh, what a strange army, with what strange equipment!  They come to the foot of the temple of Berith, and Abimelech takes his limb of a tree and throws it down; and the first platoon of soldiers come up and they throw down their branches; and the second platoon, and the third, until all around about the temple of Berith there is a pile of tree-branches.  The Shechemites look out from the windows of the temple upon what seems to them childish play on the part of their enemies.  But soon the flints are struck, and the spark begins to kindle the brush, and the flame comes up all through the pile, and the red elements leap to the casement, and the woodwork begins to blaze, and one arm of flame is thrown up on the right side of the temple, and another arm of flame is thrown up on the left side of the temple, until they clasp