God will severely judge Abner ¹  if I do not do for David exactly what the Lord has promised him, ² 

Therefore you are great, O Lord God, for there is none like you! There is no God besides you! What we have heard is true! ¹ 

So now, O Lord God, make this promise you have made about your servant and his family a permanent reality. ¹  Do as you promised, ² 

so you may gain lasting fame, ¹  as people say, ²  ‘The Lord of hosts is God over Israel!’ The dynasty ³  of your servant David will be established before you,

The woman said, “Why have you devised something like this against God’s people? When the king speaks in this fashion, he makes himself guilty, for the king has not brought back the one he has banished.

Yes! ¹  The king may ²  listen and deliver his female servant ³  from the hand of the man who seeks to remove ⁴  both me and my son from the inheritance God has given us!’ ⁵ 

The God of Israel spoke, the protector ¹  of Israel spoke to me. The one who rules fairly among men, the one who rules in the fear of God,

Then all the people came and encouraged David to eat food while it was still day. But David took an oath saying, “God will punish me severely ¹  if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!”

Who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation ¹  on the earth? Their God ²  went ³  to claim ⁴  a nation for himself and to make a name for himself! You did great and awesome acts for your land, ⁵  before your people whom you delivered for yourself from the Egyptian empire and its gods. ⁶ 

The king asked, “Is there not someone left from Saul’s family, ¹  that I may extend God’s kindness to him?” Ziba said to the king, “One of Jonathan’s sons is left; both of his feet are crippled.”

Certainly we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. But God does not take away life; instead he devises ways for the banished to be restored. ¹ 

Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my flesh and blood? ¹  God will punish me severely, ²  if from this time on you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab!’”

They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything ¹  that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers ²  for the land.