David said to the young man who was telling him this, "How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?"

The young man who was telling him this said, "I just happened to be on Mount Gilboa and came across Saul leaning on his spear for support. The chariots and leaders of the horsemen were in hot pursuit of him.

He said to me, 'Stand over me and finish me off! I'm very dizzy, even though I'm still alive.'

David said to the young man who told this to him, "Where are you from?" He replied, "I am an Amalekite, the son of a resident foreigner."

Then David called one of the soldiers and said, "Come here and strike him down!" So he struck him down, and he died.

David said to him, "Your blood be on your own head! Your own mouth has testified against you, saying 'I have put the Lord's anointed to death.'"

Abner said to Joab, "Let the soldiers get up and fight before us." Joab said, "So be it!"

Abner said to him, "Turn aside to your right or to your left. Capture one of the soldiers and take his equipment for yourself!" But Asahel was not willing to turn aside from following him.

Joab replied, "As surely as God lives, if you had not said this, it would have been morning before the people would have abandoned pursuit of their brothers!"

Now Saul had a concubine named Rizpah daughter of Aiah. Ish-bosheth said to Abner, "Why did you have sexual relations with my father's concubine?"

These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, "Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today!

So David said, "Good! I will make an agreement with you. I ask only one thing from you. You will not see my face unless you bring Saul's daughter Michal when you come to visit me."

Her husband went along behind her, weeping all the way to Bahurim. Finally Abner said to him, "Go back!" So he returned home.

Act now! For the Lord has said to David, 'By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel from the Philistines and from all their enemies.'"

Abner said to David, "Let me leave so that I may go and gather all Israel to my lord the king so that they may make an agreement with you. Then you will rule over all that you desire." So David sent Abner away, and he left in peace.

So Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Abner has come to you! Why would you send him away? Now he's gone on his way!

When David later heard about this, he said, "I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord of the shed blood of Abner son of Ner!

Then the king said to his servants, "Do you not realize that a great leader has fallen this day in Israel?

In the past, when Saul was our king, you were the real leader in Israel. The Lord said to you, 'You will shepherd my people Israel; you will rule over Israel.'"

Then the king and his men advanced to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who lived in the land. The Jebusites said to David, "You cannot invade this place! Even the blind and the lame will turn you back, saying, 'David cannot invade this place!'"

David said on that day, "Whoever attacks the Jebusites must approach the 'lame' and the 'blind' who are David's enemies by going through the water tunnel." For this reason it is said, "The blind and the lame cannot enter the palace."

So David asked the Lord, "Should I march up against the Philistines? Will you hand them over to me?" The Lord said to David, "March up, for I will indeed hand the Philistines over to you."

So David marched against Baal Perazim and defeated them there. Then he said, "The Lord has burst out against my enemies like water bursts out." So he called the name of that place Baal Perazim.

So David asked the Lord what he should do. This time the Lord said to him, "Don't march straight up. Instead, circle around behind them and come against them opposite the trees.

David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, "How will the ark of the Lord ever come to me?"

When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, Michal, Saul's daughter, came out to meet him. She said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants' slave girls the way a vulgar fool might do!"

The king said to Nathan the prophet, "Look! I am living in a palace made from cedar, while the ark of God sits in the middle of a tent."

King David went in, sat before the Lord, and said, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you should have brought me to this point?

The king asked, "Is there not someone left from Saul's family, that I may extend God's kindness to him?" Ziba said to the king, "One of Jonathan's sons is left; both of his feet are crippled."

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed low with his face toward the ground. David said, "Mephibosheth?" He replied, "Yes, at your service."

David said to him, "Don't be afraid, because I will certainly extend kindness to you for the sake of Jonathan your father. You will be a regular guest at my table."

Then Mephibosheth bowed and said, "Of what importance am I, your servant, that you show regard for a dead dog like me?"

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul's attendant, and said to him, "Everything that belonged to Saul and to his entire house I hereby give to your master's grandson.

Ziba said to the king, "Your servant will do everything that my lord the king has instructed his servant to do." So Mephibosheth was a regular guest at David's table, just as though he were one of the king's sons.

David said, "I will express my loyalty to Hanun son of Nahash just as his father was loyal to me." So David sent his servants with a message expressing sympathy over his father's death. When David's servants entered the land of the Ammonites,

the Ammonite officials said to their lord Hanun, "Do you really think David is trying to honor your father by sending these messengers to express his sympathy? No, David has sent his servants to you to get information about the city and spy on it so they can overthrow it!"

Messengers told David what had happened, so he summoned them, for the men were thoroughly humiliated. The king said, "Stay in Jericho until your beards have grown again; then you may come back."

Joab said, "If the Arameans start to overpower me, you come to my rescue. If the Ammonites start to overpower you, I will come to your rescue.

So David sent someone to inquire about the woman. The messenger said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"

So David sent a message to Joab that said, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." So Joab sent Uriah to David.

Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your home and relax." When Uriah left the palace, the king sent a gift to him.

So they informed David, "Uriah has not gone down to his house." So David said to Uriah, "Haven't you just arrived from a journey? Why haven't you gone down to your house?"

So David said to Uriah, "Stay here another day. Tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem both that day and the following one.

The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and attacked us in the field. But we forced them to retreat all the way to the door of the city gate.

David said to the messenger, "Tell Joab, 'Don't let this thing upset you. There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. Press the battle against the city and conquer it.' Encourage him with these words."

So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to David, Nathan said, "There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

Then David became very angry at this man. He said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die!

Nathan said to David, "You are that man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: 'I chose you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul.

On the seventh day the child died. But the servants of David were afraid to inform him that the child had died, for they said, "While the child was still alive he would not listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He will do himself harm!"

His servants said to him, "What is this that you have done? While the child was still alive, you fasted and wept. Once the child was dead you got up and ate food!"

He asked Amnon, "Why are you, the king's son, so depressed every morning? Can't you tell me?" So Amnon said to him, "I'm in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom."

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

But when she took the pan and set it before him, he refused to eat. Instead Amnon said, "Get everyone out of here!" So everyone left.

Then Amnon said to Tamar, "Bring the cakes into the bedroom; then I will eat from your hand." So Tamar took the cakes that she had prepared and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom.

As she brought them to him to eat, he grabbed her and said to her, "Come on! Get in bed with me, my sister!"

But she said to him, "No, my brother! Don't humiliate me! This just isn't done in Israel! Don't do this foolish thing!

Then Amnon greatly despised her. His disdain toward her surpassed the love he had previously felt toward her. Amnon said to her, "Get up and leave!"

But she said to him, "No I won't, for sending me away now would be worse than what you did to me earlier!" But he refused to listen to her.

He called his personal attendant and said to him, "Take this woman out of my sight and lock the door behind her!"

Her brother Absalom said to her, "Was Amnon your brother with you? Now be quiet, my sister. He is your brother. Don't take it so seriously!" Tamar, devastated, lived in the house of her brother Absalom.

But Absalom said nothing to Amnon, either bad or good, yet Absalom hated Amnon because he had humiliated his sister Tamar.

Then Absalom went to the king and said, "My shearers have begun their work. Let the king and his servants go with me."

But the king said to Absalom, "No, my son. We shouldn't all go. We shouldn't burden you in that way." Though Absalom pressed him, the king was not willing to go. Instead, David blessed him.

Then Absalom said, "If you will not go, then let my brother Amnon go with us." The king replied to him, "Why should he go with you?"

Jonadab, the son of David's brother Shimeah, said, "My lord should not say, 'They have killed all the young men who are the king's sons.' For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about from the day that Amnon humiliated his sister Tamar.

Jonadab said to the king, "Look! The king's sons have come! It's just as I said!"

So the Tekoan woman went to the king. She bowed down with her face to the ground in deference to him and said, "Please help me, O king!"

The Tekoan woman said to the king, "My lord the king, let any blame fall on me and on the house of my father. But let the king and his throne be innocent!"

The king said, "Bring to me whoever speaks to you, and he won't bother you again!"

Then the woman said, "Please permit your servant to speak to my lord the king about another matter." He replied, "Tell me."

The woman said, "Why have you devised something like this against God's people? When the king speaks in this fashion, he makes himself guilty, for the king has not brought back the one he has banished.

I have now come to speak with my lord the king about this matter, because the people have made me fearful. But your servant said, 'I will speak to the king! Perhaps the king will do what his female servant asks.

So your servant said, 'May the word of my lord the king be my security, for my lord the king is like the angel of God when it comes to deciding between right and wrong! May the Lord your God be with you!'"

Then the king replied to the woman, "Don't hide any information from me when I question you." The woman said, "Let my lord the king speak!"

The king said, "Did Joab put you up to all of this?" The woman answered, "As surely as you live, my lord the king, there is no deviation to the right or to the left from all that my lord the king has said. For your servant Joab gave me instructions. He has put all these words in your servant's mouth.

Then the king said to Joab, "All right! I will do this thing! Go and bring back the young man Absalom!

Then Joab bowed down with his face toward the ground and thanked the king. Joab said, "Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of your servant!"

But the king said, "Let him go over to his own house. He may not see my face." So Absalom went over to his own house; he did not see the king's face.

So he said to his servants, "Look, Joab has a portion of field adjacent to mine and he has some barley there. Go and set it on fire." So Absalom's servants set Joab's portion of the field on fire.

Then Joab got up and came to Absalom's house. He said to him, "Why did your servants set my portion of field on fire?"

Absalom said to Joab, "Look, I sent a message to you saying, 'Come here so that I can send you to the king with this message: "Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me if I were still there."' Let me now see the face of the king. If I am at fault, let him put me to death!"

After four years Absalom said to the king, "Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.

Then Absalom sent spies through all the tribes of Israel who said, "When you hear the sound of the horn, you may assume that Absalom rules in Hebron."

So David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, "Come on! Let's escape! Otherwise no one will be delivered from Absalom! Go immediately, or else he will quickly overtake us and bring disaster on us and kill the city's residents with the sword."

Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, "Why should you come with us? Go back and stay with the new king, for you are a foreigner and an exile from your own country.

So David said to Ittai, "Come along then." So Ittai the Gittite went along, accompanied by all his men and all the dependents who were with him.

Then the king said to Zadok, "Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord's sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.

The king said to Zadok the priest, "Are you a seer? Go back to the city in peace! Your son Ahimaaz and Abiathar's son Jonathan may go with you and Abiathar.

David said to him, "If you leave with me you will be a burden to me.

The king asked, "Where is your master's grandson?" Ziba replied to the king, "He remains in Jerusalem, for he said, 'Today the house of Israel will give back to me my grandfather's kingdom.'"

The king said to Ziba, "Everything that was Mephibosheth's now belongs to you." Ziba replied, "I bow before you. May I find favor in your sight, my lord the king."

As he yelled curses, Shimei said, "Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man!

Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!"

But the king said, "What do we have in common, you sons of Zeruiah? If he curses because the Lord has said to him, 'Curse David!', who can say to him, 'Why have you done this?'"

Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "My own son, my very own flesh and blood, is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him.

When David's friend Hushai the Arkite came to Absalom, Hushai said to him, "Long live the king! Long live the king!"

Absalom said to Hushai, "Do you call this loyalty to your friend? Why didn't you go with your friend?"

Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, "Give us your advice. What should we do?"

Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Let me pick out twelve thousand men. Then I will go and pursue David this very night.

But Absalom said, "Call for Hushai the Arkite, and let's hear what he has to say."