2 Samuel 19:6-20
English Standard Version
Chapter 19
6because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you, for today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. 7Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now." 8Then the king arose and took his seat in the gate. And the people were all told, "Behold, the king is sitting in the gate." And all the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his own home.
9And all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, "The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines, and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.
10But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why do you say nothing about bringing the king back?"
11And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests: "Say to the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel has come to the king?
12You are my brothers; you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?’
13And say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also, if you are not commander of my army from now on in place of Joab.’"
14And he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, "Return, both you and all your servants."
15So the king came back to the Jordan, and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king over the Jordan.
16And Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, from Bahurim, hurried to come down with the men of Judah to meet King David.
17And with him were a thousand men from Benjamin. And Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and his twenty servants, rushed down to the Jordan before the king,
18and they crossed the ford to bring over the king 's household and to do his pleasure. And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, as he was about to cross the Jordan,
19and said to the king, "Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart.
20For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king."
