Study Desk

Then Zadok came, and Abiathar, and with them the ark of God's agreement: and they put down the ark of God, till all the people from the town had gone by.

And the king said to Zadok, Take the ark of God back into the town: if I have grace in the eyes of the Lord, he will let me come back and see it and his House again:

So Zadok and Abiathar took the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and did not go away from there.

Now when David had come to the top of the slope, where they gave worship to God, Hushai the Archite came to him in great grief with dust on his head:

In those days the opinions of Ahithophel were valued as highly as if through him a man might get direction from God; so were they valued by David as much as by Absalom.

And Ahimaaz, crying out to the king, said, It is well. And falling down before the king, with his face to the earth, he said, May the Lord your God be praised, who has given up the men who took up arms against my lord the king!

He has given you a false account of me: but my lord the king is like the angel of God: do then whatever seems good to you.

And they put them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the resting-place of Kish, his father, in Zela in the country of Benjamin; they did all the king had given them orders to do. And after that, God gave ear to their prayers for the land.

My God, my Rock, in him will I put my faith; my breastplate, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my safe place; my saviour, who keeps me safe from the violent man.

In my trouble my voice went up to the Lord, and my cry to my God: my voice came to his hearing in his holy Temple, and my prayer came to his ears.

For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not been turned away in sin from my God.

By your help I have made a way through the wall which was shutting me in: by the help of my God I have gone over a wall.

As for God, his way is all good: the word of the Lord is tested; he is a safe cover for all those who put their faith in him.

For who is God but the Lord? and who is a Rock but our God?

God puts a strong band about me, guiding me in a straight way.

The Lord is living; praise be to my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be honoured:

It is God who sends punishment on my haters, and puts peoples under my rule.

Now these are the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, says, the man who was lifted up on high, the man on whom the God of Jacob put the holy oil, the loved one of Israel's songs, says:

The God of Israel said, the word of the Rock of Israel came to me: When an upright king is ruling over men, when he is ruling in the fear of God,

For is not my house so with God? For he has made with me an eternal agreement, ordered in all things and certain: as for all my salvation and all my desire, will he not give it increase?