I grieve for you, Jonathan, my brother.
You were such a friend to me.
Your love for me was more wonderful
than the love of women.

During the war between the house of Saul and the house of David, Abner kept acquiring more power in the house of Saul.

Your hands were not bound,
your feet not placed in bronze shackles.
You fell like one who falls victim to criminals.

And all the people wept over him even more.

How much more when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house on his own bed! So now, should I not require his blood from your hands and wipe you off the earth?”

David became more and more powerful, and the Lord God of Hosts was with him.

After he arrived from Hebron, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him.

and I will humble myself even more and humiliate myself. I will be honored by the slave girls you spoke about.”

What more can David say to You? You know Your servant, Lord God.

I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more.

Then David said to Abishai and all his servants, “Look, my own son, my own flesh and blood, intends to take my life—how much more now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse me; the Lord has told him to.

The battle spread over the entire region, and that day the forest claimed more people than the sword.

So David said to Abishai, “Sheba son of Bichri will do more harm to us than Absalom. Take your lord’s soldiers and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and elude us.”

Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops 100 times more than they are—while my lord the king looks on! But why does my lord the king want to do this?”