when someone told me, 'Behold, Saul is dead,' thinking to have brought good news, I took hold of him, and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news.

David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth, and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.

David said on that day, "Whoever strikes the Jebusites, let him get up to the watercourse, and strike the lame and the blind, those who hate the soul of David." Therefore they say, "The blind and the lame can't come into the house."

David grew greater and greater; for the LORD, the God of Hosts, was with him.

David arose, and went with all the people who were with him, from Baale Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, even the name of the LORD of hosts who sits above the cherubim.

They set the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in the hill: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart.

They brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was in the hill, with the ark of God: and Ahio went before the ark.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached for the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the cattle stumbled.

The anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.

It was told king David, saying, "The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-Edom, and all that pertains to him, because of the ark of God." David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the City of David with joy.

that the king said to Nathan the prophet, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within curtains."

I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. I will make you a great name, like the name of the great ones who are in the earth.

Then David the king went in, and sat before the LORD; and he said, "Who am I, Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?

This was yet a small thing in your eyes, Lord GOD; but you have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come; and this after the way of men, Lord GOD.

What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, Lord GOD.

Therefore you are great, LORD God. For there is none like you, neither is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

What one nation in the earth is like your people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for himself as a people, and to make himself a name, and to do great things for you, and awesome things for your land, before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself out of Egypt, from the nations and their gods?

You established for yourself your people Israel to be a people to you forever; and you, LORD, became their God.

Now, LORD God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant, and concerning his house, confirm it forever, and do as you have spoken.

Let your name be magnified forever, saying, 'The LORD of hosts is God over Israel; and the house of your servant David shall be established before you.'

For you, the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have revealed to your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house.' Therefore your servant has found in his heart to pray this prayer to you.

"Now, O Lord GOD, you are God, and your words are truth, and you have promised this good thing to your servant.

Now therefore let it please you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you; for you, Lord GOD, have spoken it. Let the house of your servant be blessed forever with your blessing."

The king said, "Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?" Ziba said to the king, "Jonathan has yet a son, who is lame of his feet."

So Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.

The children of Ammon came out, and put the battle in array at the entrance of the gate: and the Syrians of Zobah and of Rehob, and the men of Tob and Maacah, were by themselves in the field.

Be courageous, and let us be strong for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the LORD do that which seems good to him."

The messenger said to David, "The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field, and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate.

Nathan said to David, "You are the man. This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the ground.

Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad; for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.

The servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and every man got up on his mule, and fled.

Then she said, "Please let the king remember the LORD your God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son." He said, "As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground."

The woman said, "Why then have you devised such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring home again his banished one.

For we must die, and are as water split on the ground, which can't be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him.

For the king will hear, to deliver his servant out of the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.

Then your handmaid said, 'Please let the word of my lord the king bring rest; for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad. May the LORD, your God, be with you.'"

to change the face of the matter has your servant Joab done this thing. My lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth."

When he cut the hair of his head (now it was at every year's end that he cut it; because it was heavy on him, therefore he cut it); he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, after the king's weight.

Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate. It was so, that when any man had a suit which should come to the king for judgment, then Absalom called to him, and said, "What city are you from?" He said, "Your servant is of one of the tribes of Israel."

Absalom said to him, "Behold, your matters are good and right; but there is no man deputized by the king to hear you."

Behold, Zadok also came, and all the Levites with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God; and they set down the ark of God; and Abiathar went up, until all the people finished passing out of the city.

The king said to Zadok, "Carry back the ark of God into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me again, and show me both it, and his habitation;

but if he say thus, 'I have no delight in you;' behold, here am I. Let him do to me as seems good to him."

Zadok therefore and Abiathar carried the ark of God again to Jerusalem; and they stayed there.

It happened that when David had come to the top, where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn, and earth on his head.

It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me good for the cursing of me today."

The counsel of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man inquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom.

Hushai said to Absalom, "The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good."

Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel." For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil on Absalom.

The king said to them, "I will do what seems best to you." The king stood beside the gate, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

Now David was sitting between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate to the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, a man running alone.

The watchman said, "I think the running of the first one is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok." The king said, "He is a good man, and comes with good news."

Ahimaaz called, and said to the king, "All is well." He bowed himself before the king with his face to the earth, and said, "Blessed is the LORD your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted up their hand against my lord the king."

The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate, and wept. As he went, he said, "My son Absalom. My son, my son Absalom. I wish I had died for you, Absalom, my son, my son."

Then the king arose, and sat in the gate. They told to all the people, saying, "Behold, the king is sitting in the gate." All the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his tent.

Say to Amasa, 'Aren't you my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you aren't captain of the army before me continually in the room of Joab.'"

A ferry boat went to bring over the king's household, and to do what he thought good. Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, when he had come over the Jordan.

He has slandered your servant to my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God. Do therefore what is good in your eyes.

I am this day eighty years old. Can I discern between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be yet a burden to my lord the king?

Please let your servant turn back again, that I may die in my own city, by the grave of my father and my mother. But behold, your servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good to you."

The king answered, "Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which shall seem good to you. Whatever you require of me, that I will do for you."

David said to Abishai, "Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom did. Take your lord's servants, and pursue after him, lest he get himself fortified cities, and escape out of our sight."

Then the woman went to all the people in her wisdom. They cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. He blew the trumpet, and they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. After that God was entreated for the land.

God, my Rock, in him I will take refuge; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge. My savior, you save me from violence.

In my distress I called on the LORD. Yes, I called to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry came into his ears.

For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

For by you, I run against a troop. By my God, I leap over a wall.

As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the LORD is tested. He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.

For who is God, besides the LORD? Who is a rock, besides our God?

God is my strong fortress. He makes my way perfect.

You have also made my enemies turn their backs to me, that I might cut off those who hate me.

The LORD lives. Blessed be my rock. Exalted be God, the rock of my salvation,

even the God who executes vengeance for me, who brings down peoples under me,

Now these are the last words of David. David the son of Jesse says, the man who was raised on high says, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel:

The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me, 'One who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God,

Most certainly my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he doesn't make it grow.

David longed, and said, "Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate."

The three mighty men broke through the army of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: but he would not drink of it, but poured it out to the LORD.

Joab said to the king, "Now may the LORD your God add to the people, however many they may be, one hundred times; and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?"

They passed over the Jordan, and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer:

When David rose up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, "Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me."

David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into the hand of man."

Gad came that day to David, and said to him, "Go up, build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."

David went up according to the saying of Gad, as the LORD commanded.

Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing instruments and the yokes of the oxen for the wood:

all this, king, does Araunah give to the king." Araunah said to the king, "May the LORD your God accept you."

The king said to Araunah, "No; but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

And she said to him, "My lord, you swore by the LORD your God to your handmaid, 'Assuredly Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne.'

most certainly as I vowed to you by the LORD, the God of Israel, saying, 'Assuredly Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place;' so I certainly will do this day."

Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king, and said, "Amen. May the LORD, the God of my lord the king, say so.

While he yet spoke, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came: and Adonijah said, "Come in; for you are a worthy man, and bring good news."

Moreover the king's servants came to bless our lord king David, saying, 'May your God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and make his throne greater than your throne;' and the king bowed himself on the bed.

Also thus said the king, 'Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has given one to sit on my throne this day, my eyes even seeing it.'"

and keep the instruction of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do, and wherever you turn yourself.

Then king Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, "God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life.

To Abiathar the priest the king said, "Go to Anathoth, to your own fields; for you are worthy of death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you bore the ark of the Lord GOD before David my father, and because you were afflicted in all in which my father was afflicted."

Shimei said to the king, "The saying is good. As my lord the king has said, so will your servant do." Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.