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Nevertheless Absalom urged him, so he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him.

"So now, may my lord the king not take the report to heart, claiming, 'all the king's sons are dead'; but only Amnon is dead."

And Jonadab said to the king, "Behold, the king's sons have come; so it has happened according to your servant's word."

So Absalom had fled and gone to Geshur, and was there for three years.

So Joab sent a messenger to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, "Please follow mourning rites, and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with oil but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for many days.

Then go to the king and speak to him in this way." So Joab put the words in her mouth.

"And your servant had two sons, but the two of them fought in the field, and there was no one to save them from each other, so one struck the other and killed him.

"Now behold, the entire family has risen against your servant, and they have said, 'Hand over the one who struck his brother, so that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and eliminate the heir as well.' So they will extinguish my coal which is left, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth."

So the king said, "Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore."

Then she said, "May the king please remember the LORD your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to destroy, otherwise they will destroy my son." And he said, "As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground."

"For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. Yet God does not take away life, but makes plans so that the banished one will not be cast out from Him.

"Now then, the reason I have come to speak this word to my lord the king is that the people have made me afraid; so your servant said, 'Let me now speak to the king, perhaps the king will perform the request of his slave.

"Then your servant said, 'Please let the word of my lord the king be comforting, for as the angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and evil. And may the LORD your God be with you.'"

So the king said, "Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?" And the woman replied, "As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant.

So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.

However, the king said, "He shall return to his own house, but he shall not see my face." So Absalom returned to his own house and did not see the king's face.

Now in all Israel there was no one as handsome as Absalom, so highly praised; from the sole of his foot to the top of his head there was no impairment in him.

And when he cut the hair of his head (and it was at the end of every year that he cut it, because it was heavy on him, so he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels by the king's weight.

Then Absalom sent for Joab, to send him to the king, but he would not come to him. So he sent word again a second time, but he would not come.

Therefore he said to his servants, "See, Joab's plot is next to mine, and he has barley there; go and set it on fire." So Absalom's servants set the plot on fire.