Abimelech destroys Shechem and burns the refuge

Field workers are cut down, and Shechem is sown with salt

On the next day the people go out into the field, and it is told Abimelech. He divides the people into three companies, lies in wait, and when he sees the people come out of the city, he rises and smites them. Abimelech and the company with him rush forward and stand in the entering of the gate; two companies run upon all in the field and slay them. He fights against the city all that day, takes it, slays the people, beats down the city, and sows it with salt.

Salting is a destruction or curse gesture, not proof the whole region was permanently sterilized. The named ancient city cannot be used to stigmatize later inhabitants or a modern people. Fulfillment of Jotham's warned fire is beginning; it does not commend Abimelech's method.

The hold of the house of El-berith is burned over the people inside

When all the men of the tower of Shechem hear, they enter an hold of the house of the god Berith. Abimelech is told that they are gathered. He and the people with him go up to mount Zalmon. He takes an axe, cuts a bough, lays it on his shoulder, and tells the people to do as he has done. They cut every man his bough, follow, put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them. About a thousand men and women die.

Jotham's bramble has become literal fire. Narrative fulfillment describes judgment. It does not approve burning a refuge. Being used in a larger verdict does not erase responsibility for indiscriminate killing. Leader-imitation that suppresses each fighter's moral refusal is part of the crime.