2 Samuel 14:1-14

Christian Standard Bible

Absalom Restored to David

14 Joab son of Zeruiah realized that the king’s mind was on Absalom. ² So Joab sent someone to Tekoa^(A) to bring a wise^(B) woman from there. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning: dress in mourning clothes and don’t put on any oil.^(C) Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time. ³ Go to the king and speak these words to him.” Then Joab told her exactly what to say.^[a]

⁴ When the woman from Tekoa came^[b] to the king, she fell facedown to the ground, paid homage,^(D) and said, “Help me, Your Majesty!”

⁵ “What’s the matter?” the king asked her.

“Sadly, I am a widow; my husband died,” she said.^{(E) 6} “Your servant had two sons. They were fighting in the field with no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him. ⁷ Now the whole clan has risen up against your servant and said, ‘Hand over the one who killed his brother so we may put him to death for the life of the brother he murdered. We will eliminate the heir!’ They would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on earth.”^(F)

⁸ The king told the woman, “Go home. I will issue a command on your behalf.”

⁹ Then the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, may any blame be on me^(G) and my father’s family, and may the king and his throne be innocent.”

¹⁰ “Whoever speaks to you,” the king said, “bring him to me. He will not trouble you again!”

¹¹ She replied, “Please, may the king invoke the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood will not increase the loss, and they will not eliminate my son!” ^(H)

“As the Lord lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son will fall to the ground.”^(I)

¹² Then the woman said, “Please, may your servant speak a word to my lord the king?”

“Speak,” he replied.

¹³ The woman asked, “Why have you devised something similar against the people of God? When the king spoke as he did about this matter, he has pronounced his own guilt. The king has not brought back his own banished one. ¹⁴ We will certainly die^(J) and be like water poured out on the ground, which can’t be recovered. But God would not take away a life; he would devise plans so that the one banished from him does not remain banished.