5Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said to him, “Look, we are your own family. ²Even when Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel in battle. The Lord said to you, ‘You will be a shepherd for my people Israel. You will be their leader.’ ”

³So all the elders of Israel came to King David at Hebron, and he made an agreement with them in Hebron in the presence of the Lord. Then they poured oil on David to make him king over Israel.

⁴David was thirty years old when he became king, and he ruled forty years. ⁵He was king over Judah in Hebron for seven years and six months, and he was king over all Israel and Judah in Jerusalem for thirty-three years.

⁶When the king and his men went to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites who lived there, the Jebusites said to David, “You can’t get inside our city. Even the blind and the crippled can stop you.” They thought David could not enter their city. ⁷But David did take the city of Jerusalem with its strong walls, and it became the City of David.

⁸That day David said to his men, “To defeat the Jebusites you must go through the water tunnel. Then you can reach those ‘crippled’ and ‘blind’ enemies. This is why people say, ‘The blind and the crippled may not enter the palace.’ ”

⁹So David lived in the strong, walled city and called it the City of David. David built more buildings around it, beginning where the land was filled in. He also built more buildings inside the city. ¹⁰He became stronger and stronger, because the Lord God All-Powerful was with him.

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