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the Ammonite leaders said to their lord Hanun, "Do you think that David is honoring your father because he sent men to comfort you? Has he not sent his servants to you so they can spy out the city and destroy it?"

Be strong. Let us show ourselves to have strength of heart because of our people and the cities of our God. And may the Lord do what is good in His eyes."

And he must pay four times the worth of the lamb, because he did this thing without pity."

So now some from your family, even in the future, will die by the sword, because you have turned against Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'

and sent word through Nathan who spoke for God. And Nathan gave him the name Jedidiah because of the Lord.

Amnon was so troubled because of his sister Tamar that he became sick. She was a woman who had never had a man, and Amnon thought how hard it would be to have her.

But Absalom did not speak good or bad to Amnon. Absalom hated Amnon because he had put his sister to shame.

I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your woman servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king. It might be that the king will do what his woman servant asks.

And Joab fell on his face to the ground in honor and thanks to the king. Joab said, "Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your eyes, O my lord the king. Because the king has done what his servant has asked of him."

The Lord has punished you for all the blood of the family of Saul, in whose place you have ruled! The Lord has given the nation to your son Absalom! Your trouble is upon you, because you are a man of blood!"

The king told Joab and Abishai and Ittai, "Be gentle toward the young man Absalom because of me." And all the people heard him say this to all the leaders about Absalom.

But Joab said to him, "You must not carry news today, but another time. Today you should carry no news, because the king's son is dead."

He answered, "O my lord the king, my servant lied to me. Your servant had said to him, ‘Get a donkey ready for me to travel on, so I may go with the king.' Because your servant cannot walk.

All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, "Because the king is a close brother to us. Why are you angry about this? Has the king paid for our food? Has he given us any gift?"

While David was king there was a time without food for three years. David went to the Lord. The Lord said, "It is because of Saul and his house of blood, for he put the Gibeonites to death."

So the king called the Gibeonites. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but of the people who were left of the Amorites. The sons of Israel had made an agreement with them. But Saul had wanted to kill them because he thought so much of the sons of Israel and Judah.)

But the king kept alive Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because David had made a promise to Saul's son Jonathan before the Lord.

"Then the earth shook. The mountains were shaking. They shook because He was angry.

He brought me into a big place. He saved me, because He was pleased with me.

But those of no worth are all like thorns that are thrown away, because they cannot be taken with the hand.