³ In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’

³ For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval,^{(A) 4} for it is God’s agent for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority^[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the agent of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

⁷ And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? ⁸ I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

⁵ The king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead.^{(A) 6} Your servant had two sons, and they fought with one another in the field; there was no one to part them, and one struck the other and killed him. ⁷ Now the whole family has risen against your servant. They say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he murdered, even if we destroy the heir as well.’ Thus they would quench my one remaining ember and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”^(B)

⁸ Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” ⁹ The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.”^{(C) 10} The king said, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.” ¹¹ Then she said, “Please, may the king keep the Lord your God in mind, so that the avenger of blood may kill no more and my son not be destroyed.” He said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”^(D)

¹² Then the woman said, “Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” He said, “Speak.” ¹³ The woman said, “Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again.^{(E) 14} We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence.^{[a](F) 15} Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid; your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. ¹⁶ For the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would cut both me and my son off from the heritage of God.’ ¹⁷ Your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest,’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God, discerning good and evil. The Lord your God be with you!”^(G)

¹⁸ Then the king answered the woman, “Do not withhold from me anything I ask you.” The woman said, “Let my lord the king speak.” ¹⁹ The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered and said, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn right or left from anything that my lord the king has said. For it was your servant Joab who commanded me; it was he who put all these words into the mouth of your servant.^{(H) 20} In order to change the course of affairs your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth.”^(I)

²¹ Then the king said to Joab, “Very well, I grant this; go, bring back the young man Absalom.” ²² Joab prostrated himself with his face to the ground and did obeisance and blessed the king, and Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, in that the king has granted the request of his servant.” ²³ So Joab set off, went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.^{(J) 24} The king said, “Let him go to his own house; he is not to come into my presence.” So Absalom went to his own house and did not come into the king’s presence.^(K)

¹⁹ “ ‘Cursed be anyone who deprives an alien, an orphan, or a widow of justice.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’^(A)

The Degenerate City