You seem to love your enemies and hate your friends! For you have as much as declared today that leaders and servants don’t matter to you. I realize now ¹  that if ²  Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, ³  it would be all right with you.

So get up now and go out and give some encouragement to ¹  your servants. For I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out there, not a single man will stay here with you tonight! This disaster will be worse for you than any disaster that has overtaken you from your youth right to the present time!”

Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” With his right hand Joab took hold of Amasa’s beard as if to greet him with a kiss.

But you will be able to counter the advice of Ahithophel if you go back to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king! Previously I was your father’s servant, and now I will be your servant.’

When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him ¹  in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel. ² 

The man replied to Joab, “Even if ¹  I were receiving ²  a thousand pieces of silver, ³  I would not strike ⁴  the king’s son! In our very presence ⁵  the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ ⁶ 

If that happens even the bravest soldier – one who is lion-hearted – will virtually melt away. For all Israel knows that your father is a warrior and that those who are with him are brave.

(19:1) ¹  The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, ²  Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!” ³ 

At this very moment he is hiding out in one of the caves or in some other similar place. If it should turn out that he attacks our troops first, ¹  whoever hears about it will say, ‘Absalom’s army has been slaughtered!’

The king said, “Bring to me whoever speaks to you, and he won’t bother you again!”

In those days Ahithophel’s advice was considered as valuable as a prophetic revelation. ¹  Both David and Absalom highly regarded the advice of Ahithophel. ² 

They ¹  entered the house under the pretense of getting wheat and mortally wounded him ²  in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah escaped.

I will become his father and he will become my son. When he sins, I will correct him with the rod of men and with wounds inflicted by human beings.

On the seventh day the child died. But the servants of David were afraid to inform him that the child had died, for they said, “While the child was still alive he would not listen to us ¹  when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He will do himself harm!” ² 

And you didn’t stop there, O Lord God! You have also spoken about the future of your servant’s family. ¹  Is this your usual way of dealing with men, ²  O Lord God?

¹ Then David asked, “Is anyone still left from the family ²  of Saul, so that I may extend kindness to him for the sake of Jonathan?”

When someone approached to bow before him, Absalom ¹  would extend his hand and embrace him and kiss him.

Then David went to his palace ¹  in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. ²  Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. ³  They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.

So Abner spoke again to Asahel, “Turn aside from following me! I do not want to strike you to the ground. ¹  How then could I show ²  my face in the presence of Joab your brother?”

namely, to transfer the kingdom from the house of Saul and to establish the throne of David over Israel and over Judah all the way from Dan to Beer Sheba!”