At this David asked him, "How is it that you weren't afraid to raise your hand to strike the LORD's anointed?"

brought back the people who had lived in it, placing them under conscripted labor with saws, iron picks, and axes. He did this to every Ammonite city, and then David and his entire army returned to Jerusalem.

Now she was clothed in a long sleeved, multi-colored ornamental tunic, commonly worn by the king's virgin daughters. When Amnon's servant threw her out and locked the door after her,

So Absalom responded, "If you aren't coming, please allow my brother Amnon to accompany us." The king asked, "Why should he go with you?"

The king also asked Zadok the priest, "Aren't you a seer, too? Go back to the city in comfort, along with your son Ahimaaz and Abiathar's son Jonathan.

Then ask Amasa, "Aren't you my own flesh and blood? So may God deal with me, no matter how severely, if from this day forward you don't take Joab's place as commander of my army.'

But the men from Israel answered the men from Judah: "We represent ten of the tribes of Israel! So we have more right to David than you do! Why haven't you taken us seriously? Weren't we the first to talk about bringing back our king?" But what the people of Judah had to say was harsher than what the people of Israel were saying.

So the king called together the Gibeonites and conferred with them. Now the Gibeonites weren't part of the nation of Israel, but were the survivors from the Amorites. Although the Israelis had promised to spare them, Saul had started to execute them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.

As the angel was stretching out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD was grieved because of the calamity, so he told the angel who was afflicting the people, "Enough! Stay your hand!" So the angel of the LORD remained near the threshing floor that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite.

That very day, Gad approached David and told him, "Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor that belongs to Araunah the Jebusite."

When Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his staff approaching him. Araunah went out, bowed down before the king with his face on the ground,

Araunah responded to David, "May your majesty the king take it and offer whatever pleases him. Here are oxen for a burnt offering, along with the threshing sledges and yokes from the oxen for wood!

Your majesty, Araunah gives all of this to the king." Araunah also told the king, "May the LORD your God be pleased with you!"

"No!" the king replied to Araunah. "I will buy them from you at full price. I won't offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 silver shekels,