2 Samuel 17:17–29

¹⁷Jonathan and Ahimaaz were waiting at En-rogel; a female slave used to go and tell them, and they would go and tell King David, for they could not risk being seen entering the city.^{* 18}But a young man saw them and told Absalom, so both of them went away quickly and came to the house of a man at Bahurim who had a well in his courtyard, and they went down into it.^{* 19}The man’s wife took a covering, stretched it over the well’s mouth, and spread out grain on it, and nothing was known of it.^{* 20}When Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house, they said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” The woman said to them, “They have crossed over the brook^u of water.” And when they had searched and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.^*

²¹After they had gone, the men came up out of the well and went and told King David. They said to David, “Go and cross the water quickly, for thus and so has Ahithophel counseled against you.”^{* 22}So David and all the people who were with him set out and crossed the Jordan; by daybreak not one was left who had not crossed the Jordan.

²³When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order and hanged himself; he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.^*

²⁴Then David came to Mahanaim, while Absalom crossed the Jordan with all the men of Israel.^{* 25}Now Absalom had set Amasa over the army in the place of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra the Ishmaelite,^v who had married Abigal daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab’s mother.^{* 26}The Israelites and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.

²⁷When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim^{* 28}brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, meal, parched grain, beans and lentils,^{w 29}honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, “The troops are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.”^*