From Tebah ¹  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. ¹ 

You rescue me from a hostile army; ¹  you preserve me as a leader of nations; people over whom I had no authority are now my subjects. ² 

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. ¹ 

Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader ¹  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?” ¹  She answered, “I am a widow; my husband is dead.

Absalom had ¹  three sons and one daughter, whose name was Tamar. She was a very attractive woman. ² 

He brought me out into a wide open place; he delivered me because he was pleased with me. ¹ 

Indeed, ¹ with your help ²  I can charge ³  against an army; ⁴  by my God’s power ⁵  I can jump over a wall. ⁶ 

He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹  he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ² 

Yet another battle occurred in Gath. On that occasion there was a large man ¹  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 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 

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, ¹  had a spear ²  that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, ³  and he was armed with a new weapon. ⁴  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. ¹  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. ¹ 

David was in the stronghold at the time, while a Philistine garrison was in Bethlehem. ¹ 

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.”