So Ish-bosheth ordered that she be taken away from her husband, Laish's son Paltiel.

As the ark of the LORD was coming into the City of David, Saul's daughter Michal was peering out a window, watching King David jumping and dancing in the LORD's presence, and she despised him in her heart.

And Saul's daughter Michal bore no children from that day on until the day she died.

Late one afternoon about dusk, David got up from his couch and was walking around on the roof of the royal palace. From there he watched a woman taking a bath, and she was very beautiful to look at.

So David sent some messengers, took her from her home, and she went to him, and he had sex with her. (She had been consecrating herself following her menstrual separation.) Then she returned to her home.

The woman conceived, and she sent this message to David: "I'm pregnant."

When Uriah's wife heard about the death of her husband Uriah, she went into mourning for the head of her household.

When her mourning period was completed, David sent for her, brought her to his palace, and she became his wife. Later on, she bore him a son.

Then David consoled his wife Bathsheba. He went in and had sex with her, and she bore a son whom he named Solomon. The LORD loved him,

Amnon became so emotionally distressed that he fell sick over his half-sister Tamar. She was a virgin, and Amnon found it difficult to do anything to her.

Jonadab advised him, "Lie down and pretend to be sick. When your father visits you, ask him, "Please let my sister Tamar come and give me something to eat that she prepares especially for me, and after she makes dinner for me, let her feed it to me personally.'"

So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. When the king came to visit him, Amnon asked the king, "Please let my sister Tamar come and make some of her bread especially for me, so she can feed it to me personally."

Tamar went to her brother Amnon's home, where he was lying down. She brought along some dough, kneaded it, prepared some cakes especially for him, baked them,

"Send everybody out of here," Amnon said. So everyone left the room. Amnon told Tamar, "Bring the food into my private bedroom, so I can eat it with you personally." So Tamar took the cakes she had prepared and brought them into the private bedroom for her brother Amnon.

But as soon as she brought them near him to eat, he overpowered her and told her, "Come here and have sex with me, my sister!"

"No, my brother!" she kept telling him. "Don't humiliate me like this! This just isn't done in Israel! Don't do this utterly foolish thing!

But he was unwilling to listen to what she was saying. Since he was stronger than she was, he forced her into having sex with him.

Even so, she tried to tell him, "No! After all, it's more wrong to send me away than what you just did to me!"

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,

Tamar rubbed her head with ashes, tore her tunic that she was wearing, put her hand to her head, and ran off, crying aloud as she went away.

When the woman from Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, prostrating herself to address him, "Help, your majesty!"

"I've been a widowed woman ever since my husband died," she answered. "Your humble servant used to have two sons, but they got into a fight out in the field. Because there was no one to keep them apart, one of them attacked the other and killed him.

Then she said, "Your majesty, please remember the LORD your God, so that blood avengers don't do any more damage! Otherwise, they'll destroy my son!" So he promised, "As the LORD lives, not even a single hair from your son's head will fall to the ground!"

Absalom fathered three sons and one daughter, whom he named Tamar. She was a beautiful woman, both in form and appearance.

Just then a wise woman called out from the city. "Attention!" she said, "Go tell Joab "Come here! I want to talk to you!'"

Joab came over and the woman asked him, "Are you Joab?" "I am," he answered. So she told him, "Listen to what your servant has to say!" "I'm listening," he replied.

So she said, "In days past, people used to settle a dispute by saying "Let's ask for advice at Abel!'

Instead, the king arrested Aiah's daughter Rizpah's two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, whom she had borne to Saul, and the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Barzillai the Meholathite's son Adriel.

Then Aiah's daughter Rizpah grabbed some sackcloth and spread it out for herself on the rock where her children had been hanged from the beginning of harvest until the first rain fell from the sky. She would not allow any scavenger birds to land on them during the day nor the beasts of the field to approach them at night.