2 Samuel 20:9-21:15

American Standard Version

⁹ And Joab said to Amasa, Is it well with thee, my brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. ¹⁰ But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand: so he smote him therewith in the body, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he died.

And Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri. ¹¹ And there stood by him one of Joab’s young men, and said, He that favoreth Joab, and he that is for David, let him follow Joab. ¹² And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still. ¹³ When he was removed out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri.

¹⁴ And he went through all the tribes of Israel unto Abel, and to Beth-maacah, and all the Berites: and they were gathered together, and went also after him. ¹⁵ And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people that were with Joab ^[a]battered the wall, to throw it down. ¹⁶ Then cried a wise woman out of the city, Hear, hear; say, I pray you, unto Joab, Come near hither, that I may speak with thee. ¹⁷ And he came near unto her; and the woman said, Art thou Joab? And he answered, I am. Then she said unto him, Hear the words of thy handmaid. And he answered, I do hear. ¹⁸ Then she spake, saying, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel: and so they ended the matter. ¹⁹ I am of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of Jehovah? ²⁰ And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy. ²¹ The matter is not so: but a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against David; deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall. ²² Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. And he blew the trumpet, and they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. And Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king.

²³ Now Joab was over all the host of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the ^[b]Cherethites and over the Pelethites; ²⁴ and Adoram was over the men subject to taskwork; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the ^[c]recorder; ²⁵ and Sheva was ^[d]scribe; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests; ²⁶ and also Ira the Jairite was ^[e]chief minister unto David.

21 And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Jehovah. And Jehovah said, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites. ² And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah); ³ and David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of Jehovah? ⁴ And the Gibeonites said unto him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; ^[f]neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. ⁵ And they said unto the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, ^[g]that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, ⁶ let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto Jehovah in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Jehovah. And the king said, I will give them.

⁷ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of Jehovah’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. ⁸ But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of ^[h]Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bare to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: ⁹ and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before Jehovah, and they fell all seven together. And they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰ And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water was poured upon them from heaven; and she suffered neither the birds of the heavens to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. ¹¹ And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.

¹² And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the ^[i]street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day that the Philistines slew Saul in Gilboa; ¹³ and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son: and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. ¹⁴ And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was entreated for the land.

¹⁵ And the Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David waxed faint;