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2 SAM C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24
18 David organized his soldiers for the battle. He counted them and then appointed someone to lead each group of a hundred soldiers. He then appointed someone to lead each group of one thousand soldiers that contained ten groups of a hundred soldiers. 2 David then sent the soldiers out in three divisions. Joab commanded one division, Joab’s brother Abishai commanded a second division, and Ittai from Gath commanded the third division. Before they left, David told the soldiers, “I will go with you personally into the battle.”
3 But his soldiers said, “No, we will not permit you to come into the battle with us. Even if they defeat us so that we all run away, they will not care about us. Or even if they kill half of us, they will not care about that either. There are ten thousand soldiers like us, but only one king like you. So it would be better for you to stay here inside the city of Mahanaim. You can receive reports of the battle and send soldiers to where we need them, and you can keep the city secure as a place to which we can retreat if we need to.”
4 The king replied to them, “Very well, I will do whatever seems best to you.” So he stood beside the city gate and observed while his soldiers marched out in their groups of hundreds and thousands.
5 As they were leaving, the king ordered Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, “For my sake, do not harm that young man Absalom!” All the soldiers heard David give this order about Absalom to his three main commanders.
6 So David’s soldiers went out to fight against the Israelite soldiers who were supporting Absalom. They fought a battle in the Forest of Ephraim. 7 David’s soldiers won the battle there against Absalom’s soldiers. They badly defeated them that day. They killed 20,000 of them. 8 The battle broke up into small skirmishes all over that area. The number of Absalom’s soldiers who died that day because of accidents in the forest was greater than the number of them whom David’s soldiers killed in the battle.
9 In the forest, Absalom suddenly noticed that some of David’s soldiers were near him. Absalom was riding on the mule that the Israelite king rode. To get away from David’s soldiers, he made the mule run away, and the mule ran under the thick branches of a large oak tree. Absalom’s head got caught in the branches. The mule he was riding kept going, and that left Absalom dangling in the air.
10 One of David’s soldiers saw what happened. He went and told Joab, “Listen, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree!”
11 Joab said to the man, “Listen, when you saw him hanging there, you should have killed him immediately! If you had killed him, I would have rewarded you with ten pieces of silver and a soldier’s belt!”
12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if you gave me a thousand pieces of silver, I would not do anything to harm the king’s son. I say this because we all heard the king command you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘For my sake, keep any soldier from hurting that young man Absalom!’ 13 If I had killed Absalom, I would have put my own life in danger. The king would have heard about it, since the king hears about everything. You would not have protected me by saying I was obeying your orders, and the king would have executed me.”
14 Joab said, “I am not going to stay here and speak with you any longer!” Then he got three spears and went to where Absalom was. Absalom was still alive, dangling from the branches of the oak tree. Joab thrust the spears into Absalom’s chest. 15 Then ten young men who carried Joab’s weapons gathered around Absalom, and they stabbed him repeatedly to finish killing him.
16 Then Joab blew on his ram’s horn to signal to his soldiers that they should stop fighting. So his soldiers stopped chasing Absalom’s soldiers and came back to their camp. 17 They took Absalom’s body and threw it into a huge pit in the forest. They covered it with a huge pile of stones. Meanwhile, all the remaining Israelite soldiers who had been supporting Absalom ran away back to their own homes.
18 (Absalom had no sons to preserve his family name because his sons had died while they were still young. So while Absalom was alive, he had built a monument in the Valley of Kings near Jerusalem. He thought that if he did that, people would remember him. He named the monument after himself, and people still call it Absalom’s Monument.)
19 Ahimaaz son of Zadok said to Joab, “Allow me to run to King David and tell him the good news. I want to do this because Yahweh has shown that he wants David to remain as king, because he enabled his soldiers to defeat his enemies!”
20 But Joab said to him, “No, I will not allow you to run and tell this news to the king today. Some other day you may do that, but not today. I do not want you to bring to the king the news that his son is dead.”
21 Then Joab said to the man from Ethiopia who ran carrying messages for him, “You go and tell the king what you have seen.” So that man bowed respectfully to Joab to show that he would obey and started to run.
22 Then Ahimaaz said again to Joab, “However the king might respond to the news, even though your servant from Ethiopia has already left, please allow me to run too.” Joab replied, “My boy, you should not want to do that! You will not receive any reward for your news!”
23 But Ahimaaz replied, “However the king might respond to the news, I want to go.” So Joab said, “Very well, then, go.” Ahimaaz ran on the flat ground through which the Jordan River flows and arrived where David was before the man from Ethiopia did because he had run through hills and forests.
24 David was sitting in the area between the inner and outer gate in the city wall. A watchman went up on top of the city wall and stood on the roof over the gates. As he was looking around, he suddenly noticed a lone runner. 25 The watchman called down and reported this to King David. David said, “If he is alone, that indicates that he is coming to tell us news.” The man who was running continued to come closer.
26 Then the watchman saw another man running. So he called down to those below, “I see another man running alone!” And King David said, “He is also coming to tell us some news.”
27 The watchman said, “The first man seems to be Ahimaaz son of Zadok. He is running the way Ahimaaz runs.” The king said, “He must be coming to tell us good news, because Joab would not have sent someone like him to tell us bad news.”
28 When Ahimaaz got close enough, he called out to King David, “All is well!” When he arrived, he knelt down in front of him with his face on the ground to show respect. Then he said, “Your Majesty, praise Yahweh your God, who made your soldiers defeat the men who were rebelling against you!”
29 King David asked, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” Ahimaaz did not want to answer that question, so he replied, “When Joab sent the man from Ethiopia and me to bring news to you, I saw that there was a lot of confusion, but I do not know what it was about.”
30 So the king said, “Stand over there and wait.” So Ahimaaz stepped aside and stood nearby.
31 Then the man from Ethiopia arrived. He said, “Your Majesty, I have some good news to share with you. Here it is. Today Yahweh has shown that he wants you to remain as king, because he has enabled your soldiers to defeat the enemies who rebelled against you!”
32 The king said to him, “Is the young man Absalom safe?” The man from Ethiopia replied, “Sir, I wish that what happened to him would happen to all of your enemies and to anyone who violently rebels against you!”
33 Realizing that he meant that Absalom was dead, David became extremely distressed. He went up to the room above the gateway and cried. As he was going up, he kept crying out, “O, my son Absalom! O, my dear son Absalom, I wish that I had died instead of you, Absalom, my dear son!”
2 SAM C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24