⁸ Then the king arose and sat in the ^(A)gate. And they told all the people, saying, “There is the king, sitting in the gate.” So all the people came before the king.

For everyone of Israel had ^(B)fled to his tent.

²⁴ Now David was sitting between the ^(A)two gates. And the watchman went up to the roof over the gate, to the wall, lifted his eyes and looked, and there was a man, running alone.

⁴ Then the king said to them, “Whatever seems best to you I will do.” So the king stood beside the gate, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

¹² And Judah was defeated by Israel, and every man fled to his tent.

³⁶ Then, as the sun was going down, a shout went throughout the army, saying, “Every man to his city, and every man to his own country!”

³ And the people ^[a]stole back ^(A)into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle.

¹⁷ And they took Absalom and cast him into a large pit in the woods, and ^(A)laid a very large heap of stones over him. Then all Israel ^(B)fled, everyone to his tent.

⁶ So the people went out into the field of battle against Israel. And the battle was in the ^(A)woods of Ephraim. ⁷ The people of Israel were overthrown there before the servants of David, and a great slaughter of twenty thousand took place there that day. ⁸ For the battle there was scattered over the face of the whole countryside, and the woods devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

² Now Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. So it was, whenever anyone who had a ^(A)lawsuit^[a] came to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call to him and say, “What city are you from?” And he would say, “Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel.”