He said to me, ‘Come, stand over me and kill me, for convulsions have seized me, and yet my life still lingers.’

Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! In life and in death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.

They brought the head of Ishbaal to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of Ishbaal son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life; the Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.”

David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity,

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.”

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.

But Ittai answered the king, “As the Lord lives and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be.”

David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Let him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has bidden him.

and I will bring all the people back to you as a bride comes home to her husband. You seek the life of only one man, and all the people will be at peace.”

On the other hand, if I had dealt treacherously against his life (and there is nothing hidden from the king), then you yourself would have stood aloof.”

Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar that is in the King’s Valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.” He called the pillar by his own name; it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.

Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, “Today you have covered with shame the faces of all your officers who have saved your life today, and the lives of your sons and your daughters, and the lives of your wives and your concubines,