2 Samuel 3:23-39 ▼

23 and Joab and all the host that [were] with him have come, and they declare to Joab, saying, “Abner son of Ner has come to the king, and he sends him away, and he goes in peace.”

24 And Joab comes to the king and says, “What have you done? Behold, Abner has come to you! Why [is] this—you have sent him away, and he is really gone?

25 You have known Abner son of Ner, that he came to deceive you, and to know your going out and your coming in, and to know all that you are doing.”

26 And Joab goes out from David, and sends messengers after Abner, and they bring him back from the well of Sirah, and David did not know.

27 And Abner turns back to Hebron, and Joab turns him aside to the midst of the gate to speak with him quietly, and strikes him there in the fifth [rib]—and he dies—for the blood of his brother Asahel.

28 And David hears afterward and says, “My kingdom and I [are] acquitted by YHWH for all time, from the blood of Abner son of Ner;

29 it stays on the head of Joab, and on all the house of his father, and there is not cut off from the house of Joab one who has discharging, and leprous, and laying hold on a staff, and falling by a sword, and lacking bread.”

30 And Joab and his brother Abishai slew Abner because that he put their brother Asahel to death in Gibeon, in battle.

31 And David says to Joab, and to all the people who [are] with him, “Tear your garments, and gird on sackcloth, and mourn before Abner”; and King David is going after the bier.

32 And they bury Abner in Hebron, and the king lifts up his voice, and weeps at the grave of Abner, and all the people weep;

33 and the king laments for Abner and says, “Does Abner die as the death of a fool?

34 Your hands not bound, || And your feet not brought near to chains! You have fallen as one falling before sons of evil!” And all the people add to weep over him.

35 And all the people come to cause David to eat bread while yet day, and David swears, saying, “Thus God does to me, and thus He adds, for—before the going in of the sun, I taste no bread or any other thing.”

36 And all the people have discerned [it], and it is good in their eyes, as all that the king has done is good in the eyes of all the people;

37 and all the people know, even all Israel, in that day, that it has not been from the king—to put Abner son of Ner to death.

38 And the king says to his servants, “Do you not know that a prince and a great one has fallen this day in Israel?

39 And today I [am] tender, and an anointed king: and these men, sons of Zeruiah, [are] too hard for me; YHWH repays to the doer of the evil according to his evil.”