Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two years without seeing the king’s face.

After the death of Saul, ¹  when David had returned from defeating the Amalekites, ²  he stayed at Ziklag ³  for two days.

Your servant ¹  has two sons. When the two of them got into a fight in the field, there was no one present who could intervene. One of them struck the other and killed him.

So David went up, along with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelite and Abigail, formerly the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

Now two hundred men had gone with Absalom from Jerusalem. Since they were invited, they went naively and were unaware of what Absalom was planning. ¹ 

Ish-bosheth son of Saul was forty years old when he began to rule over Israel. He ruled two years. However, the people ¹  of Judah followed David.

So the Lord sent Nathan ¹  to David. When he came to David, ²  Nathan ³  said, ⁴  “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

Two years later Absalom’s sheepshearers were in Baal Hazor, ¹  near Ephraim. Absalom invited all the king’s sons.

Furthermore, their two sons are there with them, Zadok’s son Ahimaaz and Abiathar’s son Jonathan. You must send them to me with any information you hear.” ¹ 

Benaiah son of Jehoida was a brave warrior ¹  from Kabzeel who performed great exploits. He struck down the two sons of Ariel of Moab. ²  He also went down and killed a lion in a cistern on a snowy day.

So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab ¹  whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

When Joab saw that the battle would be fought on two fronts, he chose some of Israel’s best men and deployed them against the Arameans. ¹ 

When David had gone a short way beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a couple of donkeys that were saddled, and on them were two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of summer fruit, ¹  and a container of wine.

Now Saul’s son ¹  had two men who were in charge of raiding units; one was named Baanah and the other Recab. They were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, who was a Benjaminite. (Beeroth is regarded as belonging to Benjamin,

He defeated the Moabites. He made them lie on the ground and then used a rope to measure them off. He put two-thirds of them to death and spared the other third. ¹  The Moabites became David’s subjects and brought tribute. ² 

But a young man saw them on one occasion and informed Absalom. So the two of them quickly departed and went to the house of a man in Bahurim. There was a well in his courtyard, and they got down in it.

The Arameans of Damascus came to help King Hadadezer of Zobah, but David killed 22,000 of the Arameans.

The king said to Zadok the priest, “Are you a seer? ¹  Go back to the city in peace! Your son Ahimaaz and Abiathar’s son Jonathan may go with you and Abiathar. ² 

Now David was sitting between the inner and outer gates, ¹  and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate at the wall. When he looked, he saw a man running by himself.

When he would shave his head – at the end of every year he used to shave his head, for it grew too long ¹  and he would shave it – he used to weigh the hair of his head at three pounds ²  according to the king’s weight.