Study Desk

The man's wife put the cover on the well and poured grain on top of it, so the well could not be seen.

Joab said, "I'm not going to waste any more time on you!" Absalom was still alive, so Joab took three spears and stuck them through Absalom's chest.

everyone in Israel started arguing. They were saying to each other, "King David rescued us from the Philistines and from our other enemies. But then we chose Absalom to be our new leader, and David had to leave the country to get away. Absalom died in battle, so why hasn't something been done to bring David back?"

Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, also came to meet David. He had missed David so much that he had not taken a bath or trimmed his beard or washed his clothes the whole time David was gone.

He answered, "Your Majesty, you know I can't walk. I told my servant to saddle a donkey for me so I could go with you. But my servant left without me, and

then he lied about me. You're as wise as an angel of God, so do what you think is right.

I'll cross the river with you, but I'll only go a little way on the other side. You don't have to be so kind to me.

The people of Judah answered, "Why are you so angry? We are the king's relatives. He didn't give us any food, and we didn't take anything for ourselves!"

So they stopped following David and went off with Sheba. But the people of Judah stayed close to David all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

So David said to Abishai, "Sheba will hurt us more than Absalom ever did. Take my best soldiers and go after him. We don't want him to take over any walled cities and get away from us."

Joab said, "Amasa, my cousin, how are you?" Then Joab took hold of Amasa's beard with his right hand, so that he could greet him with a kiss.

Amasa was still rolling in his own blood in the middle of the road. The soldier who had shouted noticed that everyone who passed by would stop, so he dragged Amasa off the road and covered him with a blanket.

Joab and his troops came and surrounded Abel, so that no one could go in or come out. They made a dirt ramp up to the town wall and then started to use a battering ram to knock the wall down.

While David was king, there were three years in a row when the nation of Israel could not grow enough food. So David asked the Lord for help, and the Lord answered, "Saul and his family are guilty of murder, because he had the Gibeonites killed."

He said, "What can I do to make up for what Saul did, so that you'll ask the Lord to be kind to his people again?"

They replied, "Saul tried to kill all our people so that none of us would be left in the land of Israel.

David had made a promise to Jonathan with the Lord as his witness, so he spared Jonathan's son Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul.

So David told Joab and the army officers, "Go to every tribe in Israel, from the town of Dan in the north all the way south to Beersheba, and count everyone who can serve in the army. I want to know how many there are."

So David told Joab and the army officers, "Go to every tribe in Israel, from the town of Dan in the north all the way south to Beersheba, and count everyone who can serve in the army. I want to know how many there are." Joab answered, "I hope the Lord your God will give you a hundred times more soldiers than you already have. I hope you will live to see that day! But why do you want to do a thing like this?" But when David refused to change his mind, Joab and the army officers went out and started counting the people.

So that morning, the Lord sent an angel to spread a horrible disease everywhere in Israel, from Dan to Beersheba. And before it was over, seventy thousand people had died. When the angel was about to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord felt sorry for all the suffering he had caused and told the angel, "That's enough! Don't touch them." This happened at the threshing place that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite.