¹⁸ The three sons of Zeruiah^(A) were there: Joab,^(B) Abishai^(C) and Asahel.^(D) Now Asahel was as fleet-footed as a wild gazelle.^{(E) 19} He chased Abner, turning neither to the right nor to the left as he pursued him. ²⁰ Abner looked behind him and asked, “Is that you, Asahel?”

“It is,” he answered.

²¹ Then Abner said to him, “Turn aside to the right or to the left; take on one of the young men and strip him of his weapons.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him.

²² Again Abner warned Asahel, “Stop chasing me! Why should I strike you down? How could I look your brother Joab in the face?”^(F)

²³ But Asahel refused to give up the pursuit; so Abner thrust the butt of his spear into Asahel’s stomach,^(G) and the spear came out through his back. He fell there and died on the spot. And every man stopped when he came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.^(H)

²⁴ But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner, and as the sun was setting, they came to the hill of Ammah, near Giah on the way to the wasteland of Gibeon.

³² They took Asahel and buried him in his father’s tomb^(A) at Bethlehem. Then Joab and his men marched all night and arrived at Hebron by daybreak.

²⁷ Now when Abner^(A) returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into an inner chamber, as if to speak with him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother Asahel, Joab stabbed him^(B) in the stomach, and he died.^(C)