17 Moreover, Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me choose 12,000 men and I will set out and pursue David this night.

² I will come upon him while he is exhausted and weak, and cause him to panic; all the people with him will flee. Then I will strike down the king alone.

³ I will bring back all the people to you. [The removal of] the man whom you seek is the assurance that all will return; and all the people will be at peace.

⁴ And what he said pleased Absalom well and all the elders of Israel.

⁵ Absalom said, Now call Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear what he says.

⁶ When Hushai came, Absalom said to him, Ahithophel has counseled thus. Shall we do what he says? If not, speak up.

⁷ And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good at this time.

⁸ For, said Hushai, you know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are embittered and enraged like a bear robbed of her whelps in the field. And your father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.

⁹ Behold, he is hidden even now in some pit or other place; and when some of them are overthrown at the first, whoever hears it will say, There is a slaughter among the followers of Absalom.

¹⁰ And even he who is brave, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt, for all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man and that those who are with him are brave men.

¹¹ Therefore I counsel that all [the men of] Israel be gathered to you, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in your own person.

¹² So shall we come upon [David] some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew settles [unseen and unheard] on the ground; and of him and of all the men with him there shall not be left so much as one.

¹³ If he withdraws into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will drag it into the ravine until not one pebble is left there.

¹⁴ Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than that of Ahithophel. For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom.

¹⁵ Why do you cry out because of your hurt [the natural result of your sins]? Your pain is deadly (incurable). Because of the greatness of your perversity and guilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable, I have done these things to you.

¹⁶ Therefore all who devour you will be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity. And they who despoil you will become a spoil, and all who prey upon you will I give for a prey.

¹⁷ For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares!

¹⁸ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will release from captivity the tents of Jacob and have mercy on his dwelling places; the city will be rebuilt on its own [old] moundlike site, and the palace will be dwelt in after its former fashion.

¹⁹ Out of them [city and palace] will come songs of thanksgiving and the voices of those who make merry. And I will multiply them, and they will not be few; I will also glorify them, and they will not be small.

²⁰ Their children too shall be as in former times, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all who oppress them.

²¹ And their prince will be one of them, and their ruler will come from the midst of them. I will cause him to draw near and he will approach Me, for who is he who would have the boldness and would dare [on his own initiative] to approach Me? says the Lord.

²² Then you will be My people, and I will be your God.^(A)

26 When Jesus had ended this discourse, He said to His disciples,

² You know that the Passover is in two days—and the Son of Man will be delivered up ^[a]treacherously to be crucified.

³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the [^[b]open] court of the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas,

⁴ And consulted together in order to arrest Jesus by stratagem secretly and put Him to death.

⁵ But they said, It must not be during the Feast, for fear that there will be a riot among the people.

⁶ Now when Jesus came back to Bethany and was in the house of Simon the leper,

⁷ A woman came up to Him with an alabaster flask of very precious perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at table.

⁸ And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, For what purpose is all this waste?

⁹ For this perfume might have been sold for a large sum and the money given to the poor.

¹⁰ But Jesus, fully aware of this, said to them, Why do you bother the woman? She has done a noble (praiseworthy and beautiful) thing to Me.

¹¹ For you always have the poor among you, but you will not always have Me.^(A)

¹² In pouring this perfume on My body she has done something to prepare Me for My burial.

¹³ Truly I tell you, wherever this good news (the Gospel) is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told also, in memory of her.

¹³ Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom.

¹⁴ But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth.

¹⁵ This [superficial] wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual (animal), even devilish (demoniacal).

¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices.