And Joab said unto him, Thou shalt not be the bearer of tidings this day, but thou shalt bear tidings another day; but this day thou shalt bear no tidings, because the king's son is dead.

And Ahimaaz son of Zadok addeth again, and saith unto Joab, 'And whatever it be, let me run, I pray thee, I also, after the Cushite.' And Joab saith, 'Why is this -- thou art running, my son, and for thee there are no tidings found?' --

But howsoever, said he, let me run. And he said unto him, Run. Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi.

And David is sitting between the two gates, and the watchman goeth unto the roof of the gate, unto the wall, and lifteth up his eyes, and looketh, and lo, a man running by himself.

And the watchman cried, and told the king. And the king said, If he be alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And he came apace, and drew near.

And the watchman seeth another man running, and the watchman calleth unto the gatekeeper, and saith, 'Lo, a man running by himself;' and the king saith, 'Also this one is bearing tidings.'

And the watchman said, It seems to me that the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok. And the king said, He is a good man, and his news will be good.

And Ahimaaz called, and said unto the king, All is well. And he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king, and said, Blessed be the LORD thy God, which hath delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king.

And the king saith, 'Peace to the youth -- to Absalom?' And Ahimaaz saith, 'I saw the great multitude, at the sending away of the servant of the king, even thy servant by Joab, and I have not known what it is.'

And lo, the Cushite hath come, and the Cushite saith, 'Let tidings be proclaimed, my lord, O king; for Jehovah hath delivered thee to-day out of the hand of all those rising up against thee.'

And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is.

And the king will be moved, and he will go up into the upper chamber of the gate and weep: and thus he said in his going, My son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom I who will give my death, me for thee, Absalom my son, my son!

And it will be announced to Joab, Behold, the king weeping, and he will mourn for Absalom.

And the salvation in that day will be turned to mourning to all the people: for the people heard in that day, saying the king was grieved for his son.

And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle.

For you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have shown today that commanders and servants are nothing to you; for today I know that if Absalom had lived and all the rest of us had died today, then you would be pleased.

Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants: for I swear by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now.

And all the people will be judging in all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us from the hand of the rovers and now he fled from the land from Absalom.

King David sent word to the priests, Zadok and Abiathar: “Say to the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you be the last to restore the king to his palace? The talk of all Israel has reached the king at his house.

Ye are my brethren, ye are my bone and my flesh; and why will ye be the last to bring back the king?

And say ye to Amasa, Art thou not of my bone, and of my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the room of Joab.

By doing things like this, he persuaded all the men of Judah to unite in support of him. They sent the king this message: "Come on back, you and all of your army!"

And a thousand men with him from Benjamin, and Ziba the boy of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went over Jordan before the king.

And kept going across the river to take the people of the king's house over, and to do whatever was desired by the king. And Shimei, the son of Gera, went down on his face in the dust before the king, when he was about to go over Jordan,

and he said to the king, "May not my lord hold me guilty, and may you not remember how your servant did wrong on the day that my lord the king went out from Jerusalem, by taking it to heart!

But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the LORD'S anointed?

And David said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries unto me? shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel?

So the king said to Shimei, You will not be put to death. And the king gave him his oath.

And it will be when he came to Jerusalem to the meeting of the king, and the king will say to him, Wherefore wentest thou not with me, Mephibosheth?

by slandering your servant to your majesty. But your majesty the king is like an angel from God: so do what you think is best.

For, when all the house of my father were nothing better than dead men, unto my lord the king, then didst thou set thy servant among them that used to eat at thy table, - what then have I further, by way of right, or to cry out any further unto the king?

And the king said, Say nothing more about these things. I say, Let there be a division of the land between Ziba and you.

But Barzillai said to the king, “How much longer have I to live, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem?

I am this day fourscore years old: and can I discern between good and evil? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king?

Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother. But behold thy servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good unto thee.

Then said the king, With me, shall Chimham pass over, and, I, will do unto him that which shall be good in thine eyes, - and, whatsoever thou shalt choose to lay upon me, I will do for thee.

Then all the people crossed the Jordan River, followed by the king. The king embraced Barzillai, blessed him, and then Barzillai returned to his home.

And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is near of kin to us: wherefore then be ye angry for this matter? have we eaten at all of the king's cost? or hath he given us any gift?

And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye: why then did ye despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

And there happened to be there a man of Belial, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he blew a trumpet, and said, We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel.

So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stuck by their king all the way from the Jordan River to Jerusalem.

And David will come to his house to Jerusalem; and the king will take the ten women, the concubines which he left to watch the house, and he will give them to the house of watch, and he will nourish them, and he went not in to them. And they will be bound together till the day of their death to live widows.

Then said the king to Amasa, Assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present.

Wherefore the king said to Abishai, "Now shall Sheba the son of Bichri be worse to us than Absalom. Take thou therefore thy lord's servants and follow after him: lest he get him walled cities and escape us."

So Joab's men, accompanied by the Kerethites, the Pelethites, and all the warriors, left Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bicri.

When, they, were by the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa, had arrived before them. Now, Joab, was girded about with his war-coat as his upper garment, and, over it, a girdle with a sword, fastened upon his loins, in the sheath thereof, and, it, came out and fell.

And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him.

And Amasa watched not upon the sword which was in Joab's hand: and he will strike him with it into the belly, and his bowels will be poured forth to the earth; and he repeated not to him; and he will die. And Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba son of Bichri.

And one of Joab's men stood by him, and said, He that favoureth Joab, and he that is for David, let him go after Joab.

And Amasa wallowed in blood in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he removed Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a cloth upon him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still.

After he was removed from the highway, all the men passed by after Joab to pursue after Sheba the son of Bicri.

And he will pass through in all the tribes of Israel to Abel, and to the house of oppression, and all the Berites: and they will be called together, and they will go also after him.

They came and besieged him in Abel Beth-maacah, and they cast up a siege ramp against the city, and it stood by the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab were wreaking destruction in order to topple the wall.

Then she said, "In former times, {they would always say}, 'By all means, let them inquire in Abel,' and so they settled things.

And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.

The matter is not so: but a man of mount Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against David: deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall.

So the woman replied, "Watch this! His head will be thrown to you over the city wall." Then the woman wisely went back to her people. They cut off the head of Bichri's son Sheba and threw it out to Joab, so Joab sounded his battle trumpet and they withdrew from the city. Everybody went back home and Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem.

During David’s reign there was a famine for three successive years, so David inquired of the Lord. The Lord answered, “It is because of the blood shed by Saul and his family when he killed the Gibeonites.”

And the Gibeonites say to him, 'We have no silver and gold by Saul and by his house, and we have no man to put to death in Israel;' and he saith, 'What ye are saying I do to you.'

And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel,

Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.

Then he turned them over to the custody of the Gibeonites, who hanged them on the mountain in the presence of the LORD. All seven of them died at the same time. They were executed during the first days of harvest, just as the barley began to be gathered in.

And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

And it will be announced to David what Rizpah the daugher of Aiah, concubine of Saul did.

And he took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from that place; and they got together the bones of those who had been put to death by hanging.

so they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the grave of Kish his father, thus did they all that the king commanded, - and God suffered himself to be entreated for the land, after this.

And yet there will be war to the rovers with Israel; and David will go down, and his servants with him, and they will fight with the rovers: and David will be faint

and Ishbi-benob, who had been fathered by giants, said he intended to kill David. (His bronze spearhead weighed 300 shekels, and he carried state-of-the-art weaponry.)

But Zeruiah's son Abishai came to David's aid, attacked the Philistine, and killed him. After this, David's army told him, "You're not going out anymore with us to battle, so Israel's beacon won't be extinguished!"

Sometime later after this incident, there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob. Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who had been fathered by giants.

And there will be yet war in Gob with the rovers, and Elhanan, son of Jaare-Oregim of the House of Bread, will strike Goliah the Gathite, and the wood of his spear as the beam of those weaving.

Later on, there was another battle at Gath, where there was a very tall man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot 24 in number who had also been fathered by giants.

These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

And the earth will shake and tremble, The foundation of the heavens will be disturbed, And they will shake, for it kindled to him.

There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.

And he will ride upon a cherub and fly: And he will be seen upon the wings of the wind.

The LORD roared from heaven! The Most High let his voice be heard!

And he sent out his arrows, driving them in all directions; by his flames of fire they were troubled.

Then the channels of the sea appeared, The foundations of the world were laid bare, By the rebuke of Jehovah, At the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

They will anticipate me in the day of misfortune, And Jehovah will be a support to me:

And I will be blameless to him, and I shall be washed from mine iniquity.

On him who has mercy you will have mercy; to the upright you will be upright;

He who is holy will see that you are holy; but to the man whose way is not straight you will be a hard judge.

For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall.

He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

And I will consume them and crush them, and they shall not be raised up.

And Thou girdest me with strength for battle, Thou causest my withstanders to bow under me.

By you their backs are turned in flight, so that my haters are cut off.

Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people, thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen: a people which I knew not shall serve me.

Strangers shall submit themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.

Strangers shall fade away, and they shall be afraid out of their close places.

The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.

Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,

The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.

The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.

Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.

But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands:

But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.