God

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. So she gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. Now the LORD loved the child

and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah because the LORD loved him.

“Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the LORD your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

The woman asked, “Why have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, since he has not brought back his own banished son?

For surely we will die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him.

For the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would cut off both me and my son from God’s inheritance.’

And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king bring me rest, for my lord the king is able to discern good and evil, just like the angel of God. May the LORD your God be with you.’”

Joab your servant has done this to bring about this change of affairs, but my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know everything that happens in the land.”

After four years had passed, Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go to Hebron to fulfill a vow I have made to the LORD.

For your servant made a vow while dwelling in Geshur of Aram, saying: ‘If indeed the LORD brings me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the LORD in Hebron.’”

But Ittai answered the king, “As surely as the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be!”

Zadok was also there, and all the Levites with him were carrying the ark of the covenant of God. And they set down the ark of God, and Abiathar offered sacrifices until the people had passed out of the city.

Then the king said to Zadok, “Return the ark of God to the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, He will bring me back and let me see both it and His dwelling place again.

But if He should say, ‘I do not delight in you,’ then here I am; let Him do to me whatever seems good to Him.”

So Zadok and Abiathar returned the ark of God to Jerusalem and stayed there.

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

When 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.

The LORD has paid you back for all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the LORD has delivered the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, you have come to ruin because you are a man of bloodshed!”

But the king replied, “What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah? If he curses me because the LORD told him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why did you do this?’”

Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my own son, my own flesh and blood, seeks my life. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone and let him curse me, for the LORD has told him so.

Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today.”

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

“Not at all,” Hushai answered. “For the one chosen by the LORD, by the people, and by all the men of Israel—his I will be, and with him I will remain.

Now in those days the advice of Ahithophel was like the consultation of the word of God. Such was the regard that both David and Absalom had for Ahithophel’s advice.

Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than that of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had purposed to thwart the good counsel of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.