These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, “Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating ¹  loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives ²  and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today! ³ 

for the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and have remained there as resident foreigners until the present time.) ¹ 

He asked Amnon, ¹  “Why are you, the king’s son, ²  so depressed every morning? Can’t you tell me?” So Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom.”

When the time comes for you to die, ¹  I will raise up your descendant, one of your own sons, to succeed you, ²  and I will establish his kingdom.

¹ David sang ²  to the Lord the words of this song when ³  the Lord rescued him from the power ⁴  of all his enemies, including Saul. ⁵ 

But David said, “What do we have in common, ¹  you sons of Zeruiah? You are like my enemy today! Should anyone be put to death in Israel today? Don’t you realize that today I am king over Israel?”

During David’s reign there was a famine for three consecutive years. So David inquired of the Lord. ¹  The Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloodstained family, ²  because he murdered the Gibeonites.”

Then the Cushite arrived and said, ¹  “May my lord the king now receive the good news! The Lord has vindicated you today and delivered you from the hand of all who have rebelled against you!” ² 

For I, your servant, ¹  know that I sinned, and I have come today as the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king.”

They took Asahel’s body and buried him in his father’s tomb at Bethlehem. ¹  Joab and his men then traveled all that night and reached Hebron by dawn.

Then David prayed to ¹  God for the child and fasted. ²  He would even ³  go and spend the night lying on the ground.

So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning ¹  and put on garments for mourning. Don’t anoint yourself with oil. Instead, act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for some time. ² 

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.

he ¹  went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan ²  from the leaders ³  of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken ⁴  them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines ⁵  publicly exposed their corpses ⁶  after ⁷  they ⁸  had killed Saul at Gilboa.)

She said, “In the past they would always say, ‘Let them inquire in Abel,’ and that is how they settled things.

So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba.

I am presently eighty years old. Am I able to discern good and bad? Can I ¹  taste what I eat and drink? Am I still able to hear the voices of male and female singers? Why should I ²  continue to be a burden to my lord the king?

They lamented and wept and fasted until evening because Saul, his son Jonathan, the Lord’s people, and the house of Israel had fallen by the sword.

Today I am weak, even though I am anointed as king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too much for me to bear! ¹  May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!” ² 

David was king in Hebron over the people of Judah for seven and a half years. ¹