2 Samuel 17:18-29 ▼

18 And a youth sees them, and declares [it] to Absalom; and both of them go on quickly, and come to the house of a man in Bahurim, and he has a well in his court, and they go down there,

19 and the woman takes and spreads the covering over the face of the well, and spreads the ground grain on it, and the thing has not been known.

20 And the servants of Absalom come to the woman at the house, and say, “Where [are] Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” And the woman says to them, “They passed over the brook of water”; and they seek, and have not found, and return to Jerusalem.

21 And it comes to pass, after their going on, that they come up out of the well, and go and declare [it] to King David, and say to David, “Rise, and pass over the waters quickly, for thus has Ahithophel counseled against you.”

22 And David rises, and all the people who [are] with him, and they pass over the Jordan, until the morning light, until not one has been lacking who has not passed over the Jordan.

23 And Ahithophel has seen that his counsel was not done, and he saddles the donkey, and rises and goes to his house, to his city, and gives charge to his household, and strangles himself, and dies, and he is buried in the burying-place of his father.

24 And David came to Mahanaim, and Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him;

25 and Absalom has set Amasa over the host instead of Joab, and Amasa [is] a man’s son whose name is Ithra the Israeli who has gone in to Abigail, daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, mother of Joab;

26 and Israel encamps with Absalom [in] the land of Gilead.

27 And it comes to pass at the coming in of David to Mahanaim, that Shobi son of Nahash, from Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and Machir son of Ammiel, from Behold-Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite, from Rogelim,

28 [have brought] bed, and basin, and earthen vessel, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and roasted [grain], and beans, and lentiles, and roasted [pulse],

29 and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of cows; they have brought [these] near for David, and for the people who [are] with him to eat, for they said, “Your people [are] hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.”