David asked him, “Where have you come from?”

He replied to him, “I’ve escaped from the Israelite camp.”

Then David summoned one of his servants and said, “Come here and kill him!” The servant struck him, and he died.

David replied, “Good, I will make a covenant with you. However, there’s one thing I require of you: Do not appear before me unless you bring Saul’s daughter Michal here when you come to see me.”

David feared the Lord that day and said, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?”

When your time comes and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

“If the Arameans are too strong for me,” Joab said, “then you will be my help. However, if the Ammonites are too strong for you, I’ll come to help you.

When it was reported to David, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David questioned Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?”

Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.

Jonadab said to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend you’re sick. When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare food in my presence so I can watch and eat from her hand.’”

So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my presence so I can eat from her hand.”

When she brought them to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come sleep with me, my sister!”

Then he went to the king and said, “Your servant has just hired sheepshearers. Will the king and his servants please come with your servant?”

Jonadab said to the king, “Look, the king’s sons have come! It’s exactly like your servant said.”

“Now therefore, I’ve come to present this matter to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your servant thought: I must speak to the king. Perhaps the king will grant his servant’s request.

Then Absalom sent for Joab in order to send him to the king, but Joab was unwilling to come. So he sent again, a second time, but he still wouldn’t come.

“Look,” Absalom explained to Joab, “I sent for you and said, ‘Come here. I want to send you to the king to ask: Why have I come back from Geshur? I’d be better off if I were still there.’ So now, let me see the king. If I am guilty, let him kill me.”

He added, “If only someone would appoint me judge in the land. Then anyone who had a grievance or dispute could come to me, and I would make sure he received justice.”

Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying at En-rogel, where a servant girl would come and pass along information to them. They in turn would go and inform King David, because they dared not be seen entering the city.

So they returned to the city quietly that day like people come in when they are humiliated after fleeing in battle.

“Now get up! Go out and encourage your soldiers, for I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a man will remain with you tonight. This will be worse for you than all the trouble that has come to you from your youth until now!”

So he won over all the men of Judah, and they sent word to the king: “Come back, you and all your servants.”

For your servant knows that I have sinned. But look! Today I am the first one of the entire house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king.”

When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, “Mephibosheth, why didn’t you come with me?”

Mephibosheth said to the king, “Instead, since my lord the king has come to his palace safely, let Ziba take it all!”

Barzillai the Gileadite had come down from Rogelim and accompanied the king to the Jordan River to see him off at the Jordan.

a wise woman called out from the city, “Listen! Listen! Please tell Joab to come here and let me speak with him.”

When he had come near her, the woman asked, “Are you Joab?”

“I am,” he replied.

“Listen to the words of your servant,” she said to him.

He answered, “I’m listening.”

Foreigners lose heart
and come trembling from their fortifications.

When David got up in the morning, a revelation from the Lord had come to the prophet Gad, David’s seer:

So Gad went to David, told him the choices, and asked him, “Do you want three years of famine to come on your land, to flee from your foes three months while they pursue you, or to have a plague in your land three days? Now, think it over and decide what answer I should take back to the One who sent me.”

Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”

David replied, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague on the people may be halted.”