Behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, "Why have our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and brought the king, and his household, over the Jordan, and all David's men with him?"

David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in custody, and provided them with sustenance, but didn't go in to them. So they were shut up to the day of their death, living in widowhood.

When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was clothed in his apparel of war that he had put on, and on it was a sash with a sword fastened on his waist in its sheath; and as he went forth it fell out.

Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the highway. When the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him, when he saw that everyone who came by him stood still.

They came and besieged him in Abel of Beth Maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.

Then a wise woman cried out of the city, "Hear, hear! Please say to Joab, 'Come near here, that I may speak with you.'"

He came near to her; and the woman said, "Are you Joab?" He answered, "I am." Then she said to him, "Hear the words of your handmaid." He answered, "I do hear."

It came to pass after this, that there was again war with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.

In my distress I called on Yahweh. Yes, I called to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry [came] into his ears.

He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet.

They came on me in the day of my calamity, but Yahweh was my support.

The foreigners will fade away, and will come trembling out of their close places.

Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.

then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan, and around to Sidon,

and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba.

So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.

When David rose up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me."

Gad came that day to David, and said to him, "Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."

Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David said, "To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people."