the Ammonite officials said to their lord Hanun, “Do you really think David is trying to honor your father by sending these messengers to express his sympathy? ¹  No, David has sent his servants to you to get information about the city and spy on it so they can overthrow it!” ² 

David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing upset you. ¹  There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. ²  Press the battle against the city and conquer ³  it.’ Encourage him with these words.” ⁴ 

He took the crown of their king ¹  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ²  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

So David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, ¹  “Come on! ²  Let’s escape! ³  Otherwise no one will be delivered from Absalom! Go immediately, or else he will quickly overtake us and bring ⁴  disaster on us and kill the city’s residents with the sword.” ⁵ 

Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.

But you will be able to counter the advice of Ahithophel if you go back to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king! Previously I was your father’s servant, and now I will be your servant.’

But the soldiers replied, ¹  “You should not do this! ²  For if we should have to make a rapid retreat, they won’t be too concerned about us. ³  Even if half of us should die, they won’t be too concerned about us. But you ⁴  are like ten thousand of us! So it is better if you remain in the city for support.”

Let me ¹  return so that I may die in my own city near the grave of my father and my mother. But look, here is your servant Kimham. Let him cross over with my lord the king. Do for him whatever seems appropriate to you.”

So Joab’s men ¹  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ²  the wall so that it would collapse,

That’s not the way things are. There is a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Sheba son of Bicri. He has rebelled ¹  against King David. Give me just this one man, and I will leave the city.” The woman said to Joab, “This very minute ²  his head will be thrown over the wall to you!”

Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. Joab ¹  blew the trumpet, and his men ²  dispersed from the city, each going to his own home. ³  Joab returned to the king in Jerusalem.

Solomon made an alliance by marriage with Pharaoh, king of Egypt; he married Pharaoh’s daughter. He brought her to the City of David ¹  until he could finish building his residence and the temple of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem. ² 

¹ Then Solomon convened in Jerusalem ²  Israel’s elders, all the leaders of the Israelite tribes and families, so they could witness the transferal of the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the city of David (that is, Zion). ³ 

He told David, ¹  ‘Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a temple in which to live. ²  But I have chosen David to lead my people Israel.’

When they return to you with all their heart and being ¹  in the land where they are held prisoner, ²  and direct their prayers to you toward the land you gave to their ancestors, your chosen city, and the temple I built for your honor, ³ 

Now Rehoboam son of Solomon ruled in Judah. He ¹  was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, ²  the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. ³  His mother was an Ammonite woman ⁴  named Naamah.

If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ¹  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ²  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ³  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁴ 

So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ¹  of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice. ²  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ³ 

One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) ¹  Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” ² 

Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man ¹  at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. ²  This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. ³