⁸ The Lord has ^(A)brought upon you all ^(B)the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you are caught in your own evil, because you are a ^[a]bloodthirsty man!”

¹⁶ So David said to him, ^(A)“Your blood is on your own head, for ^(B)your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’ ”

³² So the Lord ^(A)will return his ^[a]blood on his head, because he struck down two men more righteous ^(B)and better than he, and killed them with the sword—^(C)Abner the son of Ner, the commander of the army of Israel, and ^(D)Amasa the son of Jether, the commander of the army of Judah—though my father David did not know it. ³³ Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab and ^(E)upon the head of his descendants forever. ^(F)But upon David and his descendants, upon his house and his throne, there shall be peace forever from the Lord.”

²⁸ Afterward, when David heard it, he said, “My kingdom and I are ^[a]guiltless before the Lord forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner. ^29 (A)Let it rest on the head of Joab and on all his father’s house; and let there never fail to be in the ^[b]house of Joab one ^(B)who has a discharge or is a leper, who leans on a staff or falls by the sword, or who lacks bread.”

^56 (A)Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers. ⁵⁷ And all the evil of the men of Shechem God returned on their own heads, and on them came ^(B)the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.

^24 (A)that the crime done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might be settled and their ^(B)blood be laid on Abimelech their brother, who killed them, and on the men of Shechem, who aided him in the killing of his brothers.

⁴ So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.” ⁵ But he shook off the creature into the fire and ^(A)suffered no harm.