²⁶ Then Absalom said, “If not, please let my brother Amnon go with us.”

And the king said to him, “Why should he go with you?”

⁹ Then Joab said to Amasa, “Are you in health, my brother?” ^(A)And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.

¹³ Now when David called him, he ate and drank before him; and he made him ^(A)drunk. And at evening he went out to lie on his bed ^(B)with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

¹⁴ In the morning it happened that David ^(C)wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. ¹⁵ And he wrote in the letter, saying, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the ^[a]hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may ^(D)be struck down and die.”

²⁷ Now when Abner had returned to Hebron, Joab ^(A)took him aside in the gate to speak with him privately, and there ^[a]stabbed him ^(B)in the stomach, so that he died for the blood of ^(C)Asahel his brother.