2 Samuel 17

⁷Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and destruction lie in their wake.

⁸The way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have turned them into crooked paths; no one who treads on them will know peace.

⁸I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

¹⁶For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.

³But You, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the One who lifts my head.

⁴To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy mountain. Selah

²For wicked and deceitful mouths open against me; they speak against me with lying tongues.

³They surround me with hateful words and attack me without cause.

¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood.

³¹Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel.”

¹⁴Finally, the king and all the people with him arrived, exhausted. And there he refreshed himself.

³¹Then Jesus said to them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me. For it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

⁷Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the man who is My Companion, declares the Lord of Hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn My hand against the little ones.

⁵⁰You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

¹⁸how they met you on your journey when you were tired and weary, and they attacked all your stragglers; they had no fear of God.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

²²“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

²¹Then Abner said to David, “Let me go at once, and I will gather all Israel to my lord the king, that they may make a covenant with you, and that you may rule over all that your heart desires.” So David dismissed Abner, and he went in peace.

²¹“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”

²¹“May you be blessed by the Lord,” replied Saul, “for you have had compassion on me.

¹⁴His wife Zeresh and all his friends told him, “Have them build a gallows fifty cubits high, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go to the banquet with the king and enjoy yourself.” The advice pleased Haman, and he had the gallows constructed.

²⁰Now Saul’s daughter Michal loved David, and when this was reported to Saul, it pleased him.

²¹“I will give her to David,” Saul thought, “so that she may be a snare to him, and the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “For a second time now you can be my son-in-law.”

³²Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.

²¹The king and his princes were pleased with this counsel; so the king did as Memucan advised.

⁴This plan pleased the king and the whole assembly.

³²When David came to the summit, where he used to worship God, Hushai the Archite was there to meet him with his robe torn and dust on his head.

³³David said to him, “If you go on with me, you will be a burden to me.

¹⁶And David’s friend Hushai the Archite went to Absalom and said to him, “Long live the king! Long live the king!”

¹⁷“Is this the loyalty you show your friend?” Absalom replied. “Why did you not go with your friend?”

⁸Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.

⁸Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast tearing them apart.

¹⁸One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a mighty man of valor, a warrior, eloquent and handsome, and the Lord is with him.”

⁵Suddenly another beast appeared, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. So it was told, ‘Get up and gorge yourself on flesh!’

³²And what more shall I say? Time will not allow me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,

³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions,

¹²It is better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.

²³Observe and find out all the places where he hides. Then come back to me with certainty, and I will go with you. If he is in the land, I will search him out among all the clans of Judah.”

¹⁴In that first assault, Jonathan and his armor-bearer struck down about twenty men in about half an acre of land.

¹⁵Then panic struck the Philistines in the camp, in the field, and among all the people. Even those in the outposts and raiding parties trembled. Indeed, the earth quaked, and panic spread from God.

¹So David left Gath and took refuge in the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and the rest of his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.

³²“We are defeating them as before,” said the Benjamites. But the Israelites said, “Let us retreat and draw them away from the city onto the roads.”

³³So all the men of Israel got up from their places and arrayed themselves at Baal-tamar, and the Israelites in ambush charged from their positions west of Gibeah.

³Soon Saul came to the sheepfolds along the road, where there was a cave, and he went in to relieve himself. And David and his men were hiding in the recesses of the cave.

⁶They will pursue us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’ So as we flee from them,

⁵And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of them, chasing them from the gate as far as the quarries and striking them down on the slopes. So the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

⁹and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of you.

¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.

¹⁷Then Saul said to David, “Here is my older daughter Merab. I will give her to you in marriage. Only be valiant for me and fight the Lord’s battles.” But Saul was thinking, “I need not raise my hand against him; let the hand of the Philistines be against him.”

⁷Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty of the mightiest men of Israel.

²⁰And Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a man of valor from Kabzeel, a man of many exploits. He struck down two champions of Moab, and on a snowy day he went down into a pit and killed a lion.

⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt.

²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

¹⁶The Lord is known by the justice He brings; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. Higgaion Selah

¹Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

⁴So these kings came out with all their armies, a multitude as numerous as the sand on the seashore, along with a great number of horses and chariots.

¹⁵He has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making.

¹⁶His trouble recoils on himself, and his violence falls on his own head.

²So the king said to Joab the commander of his army, who was with him, “Go now throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and register the troops, so that I may know their number.”

¹³For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

¹⁴My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”

²³Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!

¹⁰Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”

²⁴I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”

²³Observe and find out all the places where he hides. Then come back to me with certainty, and I will go with you. If he is in the land, I will search him out among all the clans of Judah.”

³The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’

²“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

³⁴But you can thwart the counsel of Ahithophel for me if you return to the city and say to Absalom: ‘I will be your servant, my king; in the past I was your father’s servant, but now I will be your servant.’

¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

²¹Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the purpose of the Lord will prevail.

¹⁰Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”

¹²He thwarts the schemes of the crafty, so that their hands find no success.

¹³He catches the wise in their craftiness, and sweeps away the plans of the cunning.

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

³⁵Will not Zadok and Abiathar the priests be there with you? Report to them everything you hear from the king’s palace.

³⁶Indeed, their two sons, Ahimaaz son of Zadok and Jonathan son of Abiathar, are there with them. Send them to me with everything you hear.”

²⁸See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me.”

⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

⁴For while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.

³He reaches down from heaven and saves me; He rebukes those who trample me. Selah God sends forth His loving devotion and His truth.

²¹After the men had gone, Ahimaaz and Jonathan climbed up out of the well and went to inform King David, saying, “Get up and cross over the river at once, for Ahithophel has given this advice against you.”

²²So David and all the people with him got up and crossed the Jordan. By daybreak, there was no one left who had not crossed the Jordan.

³⁸Then Jonathan cried out, “Hurry! Make haste! Do not delay!” So the boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master.

³⁶Indeed, their two sons, Ahimaaz son of Zadok and Jonathan son of Abiathar, are there with them. Send them to me with everything you hear.”

⁷Then the border went up to Debir from the Valley of Achor, turning north to Gilgal, which faces the Ascent of Adummim south of the ravine. It continued along the waters of En-shemesh and came out at En-rogel.

¹⁶Then it went down to the foot of the hill that faces the Valley of Ben-hinnom at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim and ran down the Valley of Hinnom toward the southern slope of the Jebusites and downward to En-rogel.

²⁷The king also said to Zadok the priest, “Are you not a seer? Return to the city in peace—you with your son Ahimaaz, and Abiathar with his son Jonathan.

⁹And Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fattened calves near the stone of Zoheleth, which is next to En-rogel. He invited all his royal brothers and all the men of Judah who were servants of the king.

⁴But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

⁵At dusk, when the gate was about to close, the men went out, and I do not know which way they went. Pursue them quickly, and you may catch them!”

¹⁶Her husband followed her, weeping all the way to Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, “Go back.” So he returned home.

⁵As King David approached Bahurim, a man from the family of the house of Saul was just coming out. His name was Shimei son of Gera, and as he approached, he kept yelling out curses.

¹⁶Then Shimei son of Gera, a Benjamite from Bahurim, hurried down with the men of Judah to meet King David,

¹⁹The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife arrives.”

⁴But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

⁵At dusk, when the gate was about to close, the men went out, and I do not know which way they went. Pursue them quickly, and you may catch them!”

¹⁹The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife arrives.”

²²So the spies went out into the hill country and stayed there three days, until their pursuers had returned without finding them, having searched all along the road.

²³Then the two men started back, came down from the hill country, and crossed the river. So they came to Joshua son of Nun and reported all that had happened to them.

³So the king of Jericho sent to Rahab and said, “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, for they have come to spy out the whole land.”

⁴But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. So she said, “Yes, the men did come to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

¹¹David did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to Gath, for he said, “Otherwise they will report us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” And this was David’s custom the whole time he lived in Philistine territory.

¹²So Achish trusted David, thinking, “Since he has made himself an utter stench to his people Israel, he will be my servant forever.”

²“The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place.

³⁴But you can thwart the counsel of Ahithophel for me if you return to the city and say to Absalom: ‘I will be your servant, my king; in the past I was your father’s servant, but now I will be your servant.’

¹⁵So Hushai told Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, “This is what Ahithophel has advised Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I have advised.

¹⁶Now send quickly and tell David, ‘Do not spend the night at the fords of the wilderness, but be sure to cross over. Otherwise the king and all the people with him will be swallowed up.’”

¹⁶Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

⁹This was to fulfill the word He had spoken: “I have not lost one of those You have given Me.”

¹²The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

⁴⁹and said, “Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one of us is missing.

²⁴Then David went to Mahanaim, and Absalom crossed the Jordan with all the men of Israel.

⁵So Judas threw the silver into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

¹In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.’”

¹²While Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, to come from his hometown of Giloh. So the conspiracy gained strength, and Absalom’s following kept increasing.

¹⁸When Zimri saw that the city was captured, he entered the citadel of the royal palace and burned it down upon himself. So he died

¹⁰Declare them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own devices. Drive them out for their many transgressions, for they have rebelled against You.

³¹Now someone told David: “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David pleaded, “O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!”

²When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Mahanaim.

⁸Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, took Saul’s son Ish-bosheth, moved him to Mahanaim,

²⁶the territory from Heshbon to Ramath-mizpeh and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the border of Debir;

¹³And say to Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my flesh and blood? May God punish me, and ever so severely, if from now on you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab!’”

¹³Jesse was the father of Eliab his firstborn; Abinadab was born second, Shimea third,

⁹“Are you well, my brother?” Joab asked Amasa. And with his right hand Joab grabbed Amasa by the beard to kiss him.

¹⁰Amasa was not on guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach and spilled out his intestines on the ground. And Joab did not need to strike him again, for Amasa was dead. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.

⁴Then the king said to Amasa, “Summon the men of Judah to come to me within three days, and be here yourself.”

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

¹⁷Abigail was the mother of Amasa, whose father was Jether the Ishmaelite.

⁵Moreover, you know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether, the two commanders of the armies of Israel. He killed them in peacetime to avenge the blood of war. He stained with the blood of war the belt around his waist and the sandals on his feet.

¹Now the Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, surveyed the lands of Jazer and Gilead, and they saw that the region was suitable for livestock.

²So the Gadites and Reubenites came to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the leaders of the congregation, and said,

¹⁵To Machir I gave Gilead,

¹Now this was the allotment for the tribe of Manasseh as Joseph’s firstborn son, namely for Machir the firstborn of Manasseh and father of the Gileadites, who had received Gilead and Bashan because Machir was a man of war.

⁷But show loving devotion to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table, because they stood by me when I fled from your brother Absalom.

⁴“Where is he?” replied the king. And Ziba said, “Indeed, he is in Lo-debar at the house of Machir son of Ammiel.”

¹Some time later, the king of the Ammonites died and was succeeded by his son Hanun.

²And David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent some of his servants to console Hanun concerning his father. But when they arrived in the land of the Ammonites,

¹Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.”

⁶¹And from among the priests: the descendants of Hobaiah, the descendants of Hakkoz, and the descendants of Barzillai (who had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite and was called by their name).

²⁶Meanwhile, Joab fought against Rabbah of the Ammonites and captured the royal fortress.

¹⁸Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys

³The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’

⁸But a noble man makes honorable plans; he stands up for worthy causes.

¹When David had gone a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a pair of saddled donkeys loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred clusters of raisins, a hundred summer fruits, and a skin of wine.

²“Why do you have these?” asked the king. Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the king’s household to ride, the bread and summer fruit are for the young men to eat, and the wine is to refresh those who become exhausted in the wilderness.”

²“Why do you have these?” asked the king. Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the king’s household to ride, the bread and summer fruit are for the young men to eat, and the wine is to refresh those who become exhausted in the wilderness.”

¹⁴Finally, the king and all the people with him arrived, exhausted. And there he refreshed himself.

¹⁴Bring water for the thirsty, O dwellers of Tema; meet the refugees with food.

¹¹For the Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord gives grace and glory; He withholds no good thing from those who walk with integrity.

³Joanna the wife of Herod’s household manager Chuza, Susanna, and many others. These women were ministering to them out of their own means.

¹⁸Take also these ten portions of cheese to the commander of their unit. Check on the welfare of your brothers and bring back an assurance from them.