2 Samuel 14

³⁹And King David longed to go to Absalom, for he had been consoled over Amnon’s death.

¹⁸The three sons of Zeruiah were there: Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was fleet of foot like a wild gazelle,

⁴But the king covered his face and cried out at the top of his voice, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”

²⁶Many seek the ruler’s favor, but a man receives justice from the Lord.

¹⁶Their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. And the three sons of Zeruiah were Abishai, Joab, and Asahel.

³³The king was shaken and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he walked, he cried out, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

⁶He built up Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

³Therefore wash yourself, put on perfume, and wear your best clothes. Go down to the threshing floor, but do not let the man know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

¹These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

²⁰Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

¹“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

²⁰Then David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they set food before him, and he ate.

¹⁹So the king asked, “Is the hand of Joab behind all this?” The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king says. Yes, your servant Joab is the one who gave me orders; he told your maidservant exactly what to say.

¹⁵You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do.

²¹“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit will not depart from you, and My words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children and grandchildren, from now on and forevermore,” says the Lord.

⁹Then the Lord reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

⁵Then the Lord put a message in Balaam’s mouth, saying, “Return to Balak and give him this message.”

¹⁸I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

²³When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off the donkey, fell facedown, and bowed before him.

²⁶As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

²⁷He answered, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”

²On the third day a man with torn clothes and dust on his head arrived from Saul’s camp. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him homage.

³And there was a widow in that town who kept appealing to him, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’

⁴For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect men,

¹²because I rescued the poor who cried out and the fatherless who had no helper.

¹³The dying man blessed me, and I made the widow’s heart sing for joy.

⁴¹When the young man had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone, fell facedown, and bowed three times. Then he and Jonathan kissed each other and wept together—though David wept more.

¹Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and when he arrived, he said, “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

²The rich man had a great number of sheep and cattle,

⁸One day the trees set out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.’

⁹But the olive tree replied, ‘Should I stop giving my oil that honors both God and man, to hold sway over the trees?’

²⁶Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

²⁷When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

¹³The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?”

⁸Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

¹⁹The avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death; when he finds him, he is to kill him.

³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.’

¹²the elders of his city must send for him, bring him back, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to die.

¹³You must show him no pity. You are to purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, that it may go well with you.

⁴⁵until your brother’s rage against you wanes and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”

¹⁴Behold, this day You have driven me from the face of the earth, and from Your face I will be hidden; I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

⁶The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

¹³He who answers a matter before he hears it—this is folly and disgrace to him.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy, and I took up the case of the stranger.

⁵David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan: “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die!

⁶Because he has done this thing and has shown no pity, he must pay for the lamb four times over.”

³And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear,

⁴but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips.

⁴So the king said to Ziba, “All that belongs to Mephibosheth is now yours!” “I humbly bow before you,” said Ziba. “May I find favor in your eyes, my lord the king!”

²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “My lord, may the blame be on me alone, but please let your servant speak to you; hear the words of your servant.

³³Their blood will come back upon the heads of Joab and his descendants forever; but for David, his descendants, his house, and his throne, there shall be peace from the Lord forever.”

²⁵All the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

³³Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

¹If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,

²your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities.

¹³His mother replied, “Your curse be on me, my son. Just obey my voice and go get them for me.”

⁴⁵But the people said to Saul, “Must Jonathan die—he who accomplished such a great deliverance for Israel? Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for with God’s help he has accomplished this today.” So the people rescued Jonathan, and he did not die.

³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

¹⁹The avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death; when he finds him, he is to kill him.

³⁴So for your own preservation, I urge you to eat something, because not a single hair of your head will be lost.”

⁵²And Solomon replied, “If he is a man of character, not a single hair of his will fall to the ground. But if evil is found in him, he will die.”

²¹or if in hostility he strikes him with his hand and he dies, the one who struck him must surely be put to death; he is a murderer. When the avenger of blood finds the murderer, he is to kill him.

²⁷Then Abraham answered, “Now that I have ventured to speak to the Lord—though I am but dust and ashes—

¹Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?

¹Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense:

²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “My lord, may the blame be on me alone, but please let your servant speak to you; hear the words of your servant.

¹⁸Then Judah approached Joseph and said, “Sir, please let your servant speak personally to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, for you are equal to Pharaoh himself.

³²Finally, Abraham said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak once more. Suppose ten are found there?” And He answered, “On account of the ten, I will not destroy it.”

³⁷Now Absalom fled and went to Talmai son of Ammihud, the king of Geshur. But David mourned for his son every day.

³⁸After Absalom had fled and gone to Geshur, he stayed there three years.

⁷Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

⁴⁰But while your servant was busy here and there, the man disappeared.” And the king of Israel said to him, “So shall your judgment be; you have pronounced it on yourself.”

⁴¹Then the prophet quickly removed the bandage from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.

²The leaders of all the people and all the tribes of Israel presented themselves in the assembly of God’s people: 400,000 men on foot, armed with swords.

⁸Now then, you are to tell My servant David that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: I took you from the pasture, from following the flock, to be the ruler over My people Israel.

⁴²When they were unable to repay him, he forgave both of them. Which one, then, will love him more?”

⁴³“I suppose the one who was forgiven more,” Simon replied. “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

²³Yes, I know that You will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.

²⁸because the manslayer must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. Only after the death of the high priest may he return to the land he owns.

²⁷Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment,

¹⁵These six cities will serve as a refuge for the Israelites and for the foreigner or stranger among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.

¹⁵all flesh would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.

²⁵The assembly is to protect the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood. Then the assembly will return him to the city of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.

¹⁹Now please, may my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then may He accept an offering. But if men have done it, may they be cursed in the presence of the Lord! For today they have driven me away from sharing in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’

⁹Achish replied, “I know that you are as pleasing in my sight as an angel of God. But the commanders of the Philistines have said, ‘He must not go into battle with us.’

²⁷and he has slandered your servant to my lord the king. Yet my lord the king is like the angel of God, so do what is good in your eyes.

²⁰Joab your servant has done this to bring about this change of affairs, but my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know everything that happens in the land.”

¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.

⁹Therefore give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”

⁵A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

¹⁴Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance to the house of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” said the king to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.”

²⁵If the officials hear that I have spoken with you, and they come and demand of you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what he said to you; do not hide it from us, or we will kill you,’

¹⁷“What was the message He gave you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God punish you, and ever so severely, if you hide from me anything He said to you.”

¹⁸So Samuel told him everything and did not hide a thing from him. “He is the Lord,” replied Eli. “Let Him do what is good in His eyes.”

³Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab put the words in her mouth.

²⁶“Please, my lord,” said Hannah, “as surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord.

¹⁵For I will give you speech and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.

³²So be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you are not to turn aside to the right or to the left.

¹⁴The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

¹⁵In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.”

²⁹May it whirl over the head of Joab and over the entire house of his father, and may the house of Joab never be without one having a discharge or skin disease, or one who leans on a staff or falls by the sword or lacks food.”

¹⁷And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king bring me rest, for my lord the king is able to discern good and evil, just like the angel of God. May the Lord your God be with you.’”

²⁷and he has slandered your servant to my lord the king. Yet my lord the king is like the angel of God, so do what is good in your eyes.

¹Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

²The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

⁵A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

²³So David inquired of the Lord, who answered, “Do not march straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.

²⁸A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth causes ruin.

¹¹“Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the Lord your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

²⁶The king was consumed with sorrow, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to refuse her.

³⁹As surely as the Lord who saves Israel lives, even if it is my son Jonathan, he must die!” But not one of the troops said a word.

¹⁶For how then can it be known that Your people and I have found favor in Your sight, unless You go with us? How else will we be distinguished from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

¹⁷So the Lord said to Moses, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor in My sight, and I know you by name.”

²And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Please let me go into the fields and glean heads of grain after someone in whose sight I may find favor.” “Go ahead, my daughter,” Naomi replied.

²⁰if his heart has not blessed me for warming him with the fleece of my sheep,

⁸Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

¹¹For those who heard me called me blessed, and those who saw me commended me,

²And the people blessed all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.

³⁷Now Absalom fled and went to Talmai son of Ammihud, the king of Geshur. But David mourned for his son every day.

³⁸After Absalom had fled and gone to Geshur, he stayed there three years.

³his second was Chileab, by Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; his third was Absalom, the son of Maacah daughter of King Talmai of Geshur;

⁴They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.

¹³“Good,” replied David, “I will make a covenant with you. But there is one thing I require of you: Do not appear before me unless you bring Saul’s daughter Michal when you come to see me.”

²⁸“Depart from me!” Pharaoh said to Moses. “Make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.”

³But Judah replied, “The man solemnly warned us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’

²⁸Now Absalom lived in Jerusalem two years without seeing the face of the king.

⁶From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.

⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

³⁵The Lord will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

³⁰Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the Lord does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.”

²And he had a son named Saul, choice and handsome, without equal among the Israelites—a head taller than any of the people.

²⁰They must not shave their heads or let their hair grow long, but must carefully trim their hair.

¹⁴Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him,

⁹Now Absalom was riding on his mule when he met the servants of David, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom’s head was caught fast in the tree. The mule under him kept going, so that he was suspended in midair.

⁹For this is what the Lord God says: ‘Enough, O princes of Israel! Cease your violence and oppression, and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing My people, declares the Lord God.’

¹⁰You must use honest scales, a just ephah, and a just bath.

³⁶You shall maintain honest scales and weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁶Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the standard of the merchants.

¹⁸During his lifetime, Absalom had set up for himself a pillar in the King’s Valley, for he had said, “I have no son to preserve the memory of my name.” So he gave the pillar his name, and to this day it is called Absalom’s Monument.

¹After some time, David’s son Amnon fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of David’s son Absalom.

³⁰This is what the Lord says: “Enroll this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime. None of his descendants will prosper to sit on the throne of David or to rule again in Judah.”

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the Lord.

¹⁶The roots beneath him dry up, and the branches above him wither away.

¹⁷The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the land.

³⁰Then Absalom said to his servants, “Look, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire!” And Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.

³¹Then Joab came to Absalom’s house and demanded, “Why did your servants set my field on fire?”

¹²Queen Vashti, however, refused to come at the king’s command brought by his eunuchs. And the king became furious, and his anger burned within him.

³He sent his servants to call those he had invited to the banquet, but they refused to come.

⁴Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. And he took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.

⁵Then he lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the piles of grain and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶Then Jehu wrote them a second letter and said: “If you are on my side, and if you will obey me, then bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow.” Now the sons of the king, seventy in all, were being brought up by the leading men of the city.

⁷And when the letter arrived, they took the sons of the king and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

²⁸Now Absalom had ordered his young men, “Watch Amnon until his heart is merry with wine, and when I order you to strike Amnon down, you are to kill him. Do not be afraid. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and valiant!”

²⁹So Absalom’s young men did to Amnon just as Absalom had ordered. Then all the other sons of the king got up, and each one fled on his mule.

⁹In the letters she wrote: “Proclaim a fast and give Naboth a seat of honor among the people.

¹⁰But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them testify, ‘You have cursed both God and the king!’ Then take him out and stone him to death.”

³³“Throw her down!” yelled Jehu. So they threw her down, and her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses as they trampled her underfoot.

⁸Therefore show kindness to your servant, for you have brought me into a covenant with you before the Lord. If there is iniquity in me, then kill me yourself; why should you bring me to your father?”

¹²Did we not say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

⁴⁴And they too will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’

³But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

²⁰So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

⁴Esau, however, ran to him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.

¹⁵Joseph kissed each of his brothers as he wept over them. And afterward his brothers talked with him.

²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.”