From Tebah and Berothai, Hadadezer’s cities, King David took a great deal of bronze.

I have not lived in a house from the time I brought the Israelites up from Egypt to the present day. Instead, I was traveling with them and living in a tent.

You rescue me from a hostile army; you preserve me as a leader of nations; people over whom I had no authority are now my subjects.

They took Absalom, threw him into a large pit in the forest, and stacked a huge pile of stones over him. In the meantime all the Israelite soldiers fled to their homes.

Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader has fallen this day in Israel?

The king said to Nathan the prophet, “Look! I am living in a palace made from cedar, while the ark of God sits in the middle of a tent.”

The king replied to her, “What do you want?” She answered, “I am a widow; my husband is dead.

Absalom had three sons and one daughter, whose name was Tamar. She was a very attractive woman.

He brought me out into a wide open place; he delivered me because he was pleased with me.

Indeed,with your help I can charge against an army; by my God’s power I can jump over a wall.

He gives me the agility of a deer; he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain.

Yet another battle occurred in Gath. On that occasion there was a large man who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all! He too was a descendant of Rapha.

Who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation on the earth? Their God went to claim a nation for himself and to make a name for himself! You did great and awesome acts for your land, before your people whom you delivered for yourself from the Egyptian empire and its gods.

If he regroups in a city, all Israel will take up ropes to that city and drag it down to the valley, so that not a single pebble will be left there!”

Now Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, had a spear that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, and he was armed with a new weapon. He had said that he would kill David.

Then Absalom sent a message to Joab asking him to send him to the king, but Joab was not willing to come to him. So he sent a second message to him, but he still was not willing to come.

I will cross the Jordan with the king and go a short distance. Why should the king reward me in this way?

David was king in Hebron over the people of Judah for seven and a half years.

David was in the stronghold at the time, while a Philistine garrison was in Bethlehem.

David then sent out the army – a third under the leadership of Joab, a third under the leadership of Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under the leadership of Ittai the Gittite. The king said to the troops, “I too will indeed march out with you.”