¹⁷ So Absalom said to Hushai, “Is this your loyalty to your friend? ^(A)Why did you not go with your friend?”

²⁵ So it was, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, ^(A)“Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?”

³² Now it happened when David had come to the top of the mountain, where he worshiped God—there was Hushai the ^(A)Archite coming to meet him ^(B)with his robe torn and dust on his head. ³³ David said to him, “If you go on with me, then you will become ^(C)a burden to me. ³⁴ But if you return to the city, and say to Absalom, ^(D)‘I will be your servant, O king; as I was your father’s servant previously, so I will now also be your servant,’ then you may defeat the counsel of Ahithophel for me. ³⁵ And do you not have Zadok and Abiathar the priests with you there? Therefore it will be that whatever you hear from the king’s house, you shall tell to ^(E)Zadok and Abiathar the priests. ³⁶ Indeed they have there ^(F)with them their two sons, Ahimaaz, Zadok’s son, and Jonathan, Abiathar’s son; and by them you shall send me everything you hear.”

³⁷ So Hushai, ^(G)David’s friend, went into the city. ^(H)And Absalom came into Jerusalem.