2 Samuel 18:9-18

International Standard Version

Joab Kills Absalom

⁹ Absalom happened to run into David’s soldiers. While Absalom was trying to get away on his mule, it ran under the thick branches of a giant oak tree, and Absalom’s head got caught in the tree! As his mule ran out from under him, Absalom was left hanging above the ground. ¹⁰ When one of the soldiers saw what had happened, he told Joab, “I saw Absalom stuck in an oak tree!”

¹¹ Joab asked the man who was reporting to him, “What! You saw him? Why didn’t you kill him right then and there? I would’ve given you ten pieces^[a] of silver and a warrior’s sash!”^[b]

¹² But the soldier replied to Joab, “I wouldn’t have touched the king’s son even if you dropped 1,000 pieces^[c] of silver right into my hands, because we heard the king command you, Abishai, and Ittai, ‘Watch how you treat the young man Absalom!’ ¹³ If I had taken his life,^[d] the king would have uncovered everything about it, and you would never have protected me!”

¹⁴ “There’s no reason to wait for you!” Joab retorted. Then he took three spears^[e] in his hand and stabbed Absalom in the heart while he was still alive, dangling from the branches of^[f] the oak tree. ¹⁵ Ten young men who served as Joab’s personal assistants then surrounded Absalom, striking him repeatedly and killing him. ¹⁶ At this, Joab sounded his battle trumpet and his troops stopped pursuing the other^[g] Israelis. ¹⁷ Meanwhile, Joab’s army grabbed Absalom’s body, tossed it into a large pit in the forest, and filled it up with a huge pile of rocks. Then the Israelis ran away back to their homes.

¹⁸ While Absalom had been living, he had erected a pillar as a monument^[h] to himself in King’s Valley because he had been telling himself, “I don’t have a son to carry on my family name.”^[i] So he named the pillar after himself—it’s called Absalom’s Monument even today.