⁸ Therefore you shall ^(A)deal kindly with your servant, for ^(B)you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. Nevertheless, ^(C)if there is iniquity in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?”

³² And Absalom answered Joab, “Look, I sent to you, saying, ‘Come here, so that I may send you to the king, to say, “Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to be there still.” ’ Now therefore, let me see the king’s face; but ^(A)if there is iniquity in me, let him execute me.”

³ Then Jonathan and David made a ^(A)covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.

¹⁸ So the two of them ^(A)made a covenant before the Lord. And David stayed in the woods, and Jonathan went to his own house.

¹⁶ So Jonathan made a covenant with the ^[a]house of David, saying, ^(A)“Let the Lord require it at the hand of David’s enemies.”

^11 (A)For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. ^(B)I appeal to Caesar.”

¹⁷ And David went out ^[a]to meet them, and answered and said to them, “If you have come peaceably to me to help me, my heart will be united with you; but if to betray me to my enemies, since there is no ^[b]wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look and bring judgment.”