Then Joab bowed down with his face toward the ground and thanked<n id="1" /> the king. Joab said, &#8220;Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of your<n id="2" /> servant!&#8221;p>

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,<n id="1" /> whoever hears about it will say, &#8216;Absalom&#8217;s army has been slaughtered!&#8217;

We will come against him wherever he happens to be found. We will descend on him like the dew falls on the ground. Neither he nor any of the men who are with him will be spared alive &#8211; not one of them!

They crossed at the ford in order to help the king&#8217;s household cross and to do whatever he thought appropriate.p> <p class="bodytext">Now after he had crossed the Jordan, Shimei son of Gera threw himself down before the king.

<p class="bodytext">When they were near the big rock that is in Gibeon, Amasa came to them. Now Joab was dressed in military attire and had a dagger in its sheath belted to his waist. When he advanced, it fell out.<n id="1" />p>

So Joab&#8217;s men<n id="1" /> came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab&#8217;s soldiers were trying to break through<n id="2" /> the wall so that it would collapse,

He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the <sc>Lordsc>. The seven of them<n id="1" /> died<n id="2" /> together; they were put to death during harvest time &#8211; during the first days of the beginning<n id="3" /> of the barley harvest.p>