2 Samuel 17
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15 16 17
18 19
20 21 22 23
24
1 Moreover Ahithophel said
unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and
pursue after David this night:
2 And I will come upon him while he is
weary and weak handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that are
with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only:
3 And I will bring back all the people
unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all
the people shall be in peace.
4 And the saying pleased Absalom well, and
all the elders of Israel.
5 Then said Absalom, Call now Hushai the
Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he saith.
6 And when Hushai was come to Absalom,
Absalom spake unto him, saying, Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall
we do after his saying? if not; speak thou.
7 And Hushai said unto Absalom, The
counsel that Ahithophel hath given is not good at this time.
8 For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy
father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in
their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is
a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
9 Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in
some other place: and it will come to pass, when some of them be
overthrown at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, There is a
slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.
10 And he also that is valiant,
whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel
knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be
with him are valiant men.
11 Therefore I counsel that all Israel be
generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is
by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.
12 So shall we come upon him in some place
where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the
ground: and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not
be left so much as one.
13 Moreover, if he be gotten into a city,
then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the
river, until there be not one small stone found there.
14 And Absalom and all the men of Israel
said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of
Ahithophel. For the LORD had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel,
to the intent that the LORD might bring evil upon Absalom.
15 Then said Hushai unto
Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, Thus and thus did Ahithophel counsel Absalom
and the elders of Israel; and thus and thus have I counselled.
16 Now therefore send quickly, and tell
David, saying, Lodge not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but
speedily pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that are
with him.
17 Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by
Enrogel; for they might not be seen to come into the city: and a wench went and
told them; and they went and told king David.
18 Nevertheless a lad saw them, and told
Absalom: but they went both of them away quickly, and came to a man’s house in
Bahurim, which had a well in his court; whither they went down.
19 And the woman took and spread a
covering over the well’s mouth, and spread ground corn thereon; and the thing
was not known.
20 And when Absalom’s servants came to
the woman to the house, they said, Where is Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the
woman said unto them, They be gone over the brook of water. And when they had
sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
21 And it came to pass, after they were
departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David, and
said unto David, Arise, and pass quickly over the water: for thus hath
Ahithophel counselled against you.
22 Then David arose, and all
the people that were with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the
morning light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan.
23 And when Ahithophel saw that his
counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home
to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself,
and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father.
24 Then David came to Mahanaim. And
Absalom passed over Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him.
25 And Absalom made Amasa captain of the
host instead of Joab: which Amasa was a man’s son, whose name was
Ithra an Israelite, that went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to
Zeruiah Joab’s mother.
26 So Israel and Absalom pitched in the
land of Gilead.
27 And it came to pass, when David was
come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of
Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of
Rogelim,
28 Brought beds, and basons, and earthen
vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans,
and lentiles, and parched pulse,
29 And honey, and butter, and sheep, and
cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat:
for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the
wilderness.
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