Now after this, David, questioning the Lord, said, Am I to go up into any of the towns of Judah? And the Lord said to him, Go up. And David said, Where am I to go? And he said, To Hebron.

And Joab, the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David, went out and came face to face with them by the pool of Gibeon; and they took up their position, facing one another on opposite sides of the pool.

So they got up and went over by number: twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth and twelve of the servants of David.

Then crying out to Joab, Abner said, Are fighting and destruction to go on for ever? do you not see that the end will only be bitter? how long will it be before you send the people back and make them give up attacking their countrymen?

So Joab had a horn sounded, and all the people came to a stop, and gave up going after Israel and fighting them.

And Abner was very angry at the words of Ish-bosheth, and he said, Am I a dog's head of Judah? I am this day doing all in my power for the cause of your father Saul and for his brothers and his friends, and have not given you up into the hands of David, and now you say I have done wrong with a woman.

Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son whose feet were damaged. He was five years old when news of the death of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and the woman who took care of him took him up and went in flight: and while she was getting him away as quickly as she was able, he had a fall and his feet were damaged. His name was Mephibosheth.

And David gave orders to his young men and they put them to death, cutting off their hands and their feet and hanging them up by the side of the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and put it in its last resting-place with Abner's body in Hebron.

And that day David said, Whoever makes an attack on the Jebusites, let him go up by the water-pipe, and put to death all the blind and feeble-footed who are hated by David. And this is why they say, The blind and feeble-footed may not come into the house.

And when the Philistines had news that David had been made king over Israel, they all went up in search of David; and David, hearing of it, went down to the strong place.

And David, desiring directions from the Lord, said, Am I to go up against the Philistines? will you give them up into my hands? And the Lord said, Go up, for I will certainly give up the Philistines into your hands.

And the Philistines came up again, and went in every direction in the valley of Rephaim.

And when David went for directions to the Lord, he said, You are not to go up against them in front; but make a circle round them from the back and come on them opposite the spice-trees.

So David and all the men of Israel took up the ark of the Lord with cries of joy and sounding of horns.

And they took in the ark of the Lord, and put it in its place inside the tent which David had put up for it: and David made burned offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord.

For from the day when I took the children of Israel up out of Egypt till this day, I have had no house, but have gone from place to place in a tent.

So Hanun took David's servants, and after cutting off half the hair on their chins, and cutting off the skirts of their robes up to the middle, he sent them away.

Now in the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, David sent Joab and his servants and all Israel with him; and they made waste the land of the children of Ammon, and took up their position before Rabbah, shutting it in. But David was still at Jerusalem.

Now one evening, David got up from his bed, and while he was walking on the roof of the king's house, he saw from there a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.

Then David said to the man, Go and say to Joab, Do not let this be a grief to you; for one man may come to his death by the sword like another: put up an even stronger fight against the town, and take it: and do you put heart into him.

And when the wife of Uriah had news that her husband was dead, she gave herself up to weeping for him.

And the chief men of his house got up and went to his side to make him get up from the earth, but he would not; and he would not take food with them.

Then David got up from the earth, and after washing and rubbing himself with oil and changing his clothing, he went into the house of the Lord and gave worship: then he went back to his house, and at his order they put food before him and he had a meal.

Then his servants said to him, Why have you been acting in this way? you were weeping and going without food while the child was still living; but when the child was dead, you got up and had a meal.

And he said, While the child was still living I went without food and gave myself up to weeping: for I said, Who is able to say that the Lord will not have mercy on me and give the child life?

Then Amnon was full of hate for her, hating her with a hate greater than his earlier love for her. And he said to her, Get up and be gone.

So Absalom's servants did to Amnon as Absalom had given them orders. Then all the king's sons got up, and every man got on his beast and went in flight.

Then the king got up in great grief, stretching himself out on the earth: and all his servants were by his side, with their clothing parted.

But Absalom went in flight. And the young man who kept the watch, lifting up his eyes, saw that a great band of people was coming down the slope by the way of the Horons; and the watchman came and gave word to the king, saying, I saw men coming down by the way of the Horons, from the hillside.

And Joab sent to Tekoa and got from there a wise woman, and said to her, Now make yourself seem like one given up to grief, and put on the clothing of sorrow, not using any sweet oil for your body, but looking like one who for a long time has been weeping for the dead:

And now all the family is turned against me, your servant, saying, Give up him who was the cause of his brother's death, so that we may put him to death in payment for the life of his brother, whose life he took; and we will put an end to the one who will get the heritage: so they will put out my last burning coal, and my husband will have no name or offspring on the face of the earth.

For death comes to us all, and we are like water drained out on the earth, which it is not possible to take up again; and God will not take away the life of the man whose purpose is that he who has been sent away may not be completely cut off from him.

So Joab got up and went to Geshur and came back again to Jerusalem with Absalom.

And Absalom got up early, morning after morning, and took his place at the side of the public meeting-place: and when any man had a cause which had to come to the king to be judged, then Absalom, crying out to him, said, What is your town? and he would say, Your servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.

And the king said to him, Go in peace. So he got up and went to Hebron.

It was only yesterday you came to us; why then am I to make you go up and down with us? for I have to go where I may; go back then, and take your countrymen with you, and may the Lord's mercy and good faith be with you.

And David went up the slopes of the Mount of Olives weeping all the way, with his head covered and no shoes on his feet: and all the people who were with him, covering their heads, went up weeping.

So they put up the tent for Absalom on the top of the house, and Absalom went in to his father's women before the eyes of all Israel.

And I will come up with him when he is tired and feeble, and make him full of fear: and all the people with him will go in flight; and I will make an attack on the king only:

Then after the servants had gone away, they came up out of the water-hole and went to give King David the news; and they said, Get up and go quickly over the water, for such and such are Ahithophel's designs against you.

So David and all the people who were with him went up over Jordan: when dawn came, every one of them had gone over Jordan.

And Israel and Absalom put up their tents in the land of Gilead.

And Absalom came across some of David's men. And Absalom was seated on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great tree, and his head became fixed in the tree and he was lifted up between earth and heaven, and the beast under him went on.

Now Absalom, before his death, had put up for himself a pillar in the king's valley, naming it after himself; for he said, I have no son to keep my name in memory: and to this day it is named Absalom's pillar.

Then Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, said, Let me go and give the king news of how the Lord has done right in his cause against those who took up arms against him.

Now David was seated between the two town doors; and the watchman went up to the roof of the doorways, on the wall, and, lifting up his eyes, saw a man running by himself.

And Ahimaaz, crying out to the king, said, It is well. And falling down before the king, with his face to the earth, he said, May the Lord your God be praised, who has given up the men who took up arms against my lord the king!

And then the Cushite came and said, I have news for my lord the king: today the Lord has done right in your cause against all those who took up arms against you.

Then the king was much moved, and went up into the room over the door, weeping, and saying, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! if only my life might have been given for yours, O Absalom, my son, my son!

So get up now, and go out and say some kind words to your servants; for, by the Lord, I give you my oath, that if you do not go out, not one of them will keep with you tonight; and that will be worse for you than all the evil which has overtaken you from your earliest years.

Then the king got up and took his seat near the town-door. And word was given to all the people that the king was in the public place: and all the people came before the king. Now all the men of Israel had gone back in flight to their tents.

And Shimei, the son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, got up quickly and went down with the men of Judah for the purpose of meeting King David;

And Barzillai said to the king, How much of my life is still before me, for me to go up to Jerusalem with the king?

And David came to his house at Jerusalem: and the king took the ten women to whom he had given the care of the house, and had them shut up, and gave them the necessaries of life, but did not go near them. So they were shut up till the day of their death, living as widows.

And Joab and his men got him shut up in Abel of Beth-maacah, and put up an earthwork against the town: and all Joab's men did their best to get the wall broken down.

Then a wise woman got up on the wall, and crying out from the town, said, Give ear, give ear; say now to Joab, Come near, so that I may have talk with you.

Not so: but a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, Sheba, son of Bichri, by name, has taken up arms against the king, against David: give up this man only, and I will go away from the town. And the woman said to Joab, His head will be dropped over the wall to you.

So David said to the Gibeonites, What may I do for you? how am I to make up to you for your wrongs, so that you may give a blessing to the heritage of the Lord?

Let seven men of his family be given up to us and we will put an end to them by hanging them before the Lord in Gibeon, on the hill of the Lord. And the king said, I will give them.

But the king did not give up Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the Lord's oath made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

And he gave them up to the Gibeonites, and they put them to death, hanging them on the mountain before the Lord; all seven came to their end together in the first days of the grain-cutting, at the start of the cutting of the barley.

And David went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had taken them away secretly from the public place of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had put them, hanging up the bodies there on the day when they put Saul to death in Gilboa:

I will send up my cry to the Lord, who is to be praised; so will I be made safe from those who are against me.

In my trouble my voice went up to the Lord, and my cry to my God: my voice came to his hearing in his holy Temple, and my prayer came to his ears.

There went up a smoke from his nose, and a fire of destruction from his mouth: coals were lighted by it.

I have sent destruction on them and given them wounds, so that they are not able to get up: they are stretched under my feet.

He makes me free from my haters: I am lifted up over those who come up against me: you have made me free from the violent man.

Now these are the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, says, the man who was lifted up on high, the man on whom the God of Jacob put the holy oil, the loved one of Israel's songs, says:

It is as the light of the morning, when the sun comes up, a morning without clouds; making young grass come to life from the earth

These are the names of David's men of war: Ishbaal the Hachmonite, chief of the three; his axe was lifted up against eight hundred put to death at one time.

And three of the thirty went down at the start of the grain-cutting, and they came to David at the strong place of Adullam; and the band of Philistines had taken up their position in the valley of Rephaim.

And Joab gave the king the number of all the people: there were in Israel eight hundred thousand fighting men able to take up arms; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

And David got up in the morning; now the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

And that day Gad came to David and said to him, Go up, and put up an altar to the Lord on the grain-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

So David went up, as Gad had said and as the Lord had given orders.

And Araunah said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To give you a price for your grain-floor, so that I may put up an altar to the Lord, and the disease may be stopped among the people.

And there David put up an altar to the Lord, making burned offerings and peace-offerings. So the Lord gave ear to his prayer for the land, and the disease came to an end in Israel.