¹Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Let me choose twelve thousand men, and I will rise and run after David in the night.

²And I will come upon him while he is weary and slack of hands, and I will terrify him, and all the people who are with him will flee; and I will strike down the king alone.

³And I will bring back all the people to you, as everything returns, the man whom you are seeking; all the people will be in wholeness."

⁴The word was pleasing in the eyes of Absalom and in the eyes of all the elders of Israel.

⁵Absalom said, "Please call Hushai the Arkite also, and let us hear what is in his mouth, he also."

⁶Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom said to him, "According to this word Ahithophel has spoken. Shall we do his word? If not, you speak."

⁷Hushai said to Absalom, "The counsel which Ahithophel has advised at this time is not good."

⁸Hushai said, "You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are bitter in their being, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field; and your father is a man of war, and he will not spend the night with the people.

⁹Look, now he has hidden himself in one of the pits or in one of the places. And it will be, when some of them fall at the first, the one who hears will hear it and say, 'There has been a slaughter among the people who are after Absalom.'

¹⁰And he also, a son of valor, whose heart is like the heart of the lion, will surely melt; for all Israel knows that your father is a warrior, and the sons of valor are with him.

¹¹For I counsel that all Israel be surely gathered to you, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, like the sand that is by the sea for multitude, with your own person going into the battle.

¹²And we will come upon him in one of the places where he is found there, and we will settle on him as the dew falls on the ground; and not even one will be left of him or of all the men who are with him.

¹³And if he is gathered into a city, all Israel will carry ropes to that city, and we will drag it to the wadi, until not even a pebble is found there."

¹⁴Absalom and every man of Israel said, "The counsel of Hushai the Arkite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel." And Yahweh had commanded to frustrate the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that Yahweh might bring the evil upon Absalom.

¹⁵Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, "Like this and like this Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel, and like this and like this I counseled.

¹⁶And now, send quickly and tell David, 'Do not spend the night tonight in the desert plains of the wilderness, but indeed pass over, lest the king and all the people who are with him be swallowed up.'"

¹⁷Jonathan and Ahimaaz were standing at En-rogel, and the female slave would go and tell them, and they would go and tell King David; for they could not be seen going into the city.

¹⁸And a boy saw them and told Absalom; and the two of them went quickly and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a pit in his court, and they went down there.

¹⁹The woman took and spread out the screen over the face of the pit, and spread the grains over it; and no word of it became known.

²⁰Absalom's slaves came to the woman at the house and said, "Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?" And the woman said to them, "They have passed over the stream of water." They searched and did not find them, and returned to Jerusalem.

²¹And it happened, after they had gone, that they came up from the pit and went and told King David; and they said to David, "Rise and pass over the waters quickly; for thus Ahithophel has counseled against you."

²²David and all the people who were with him rose, and they passed over the Jordan; by the light of the morning, not one was missing who had not passed over the Jordan.

²³And Ahithophel saw that his counsel had not been done; he saddled the donkey, rose, went to his house, to his city, and gave charge concerning his household, and strangled himself, and died, and was buried in the grave of his father.

²⁴And David had come to Mahanaim, and Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and every man of Israel with him.

²⁵Absalom set Amasa over the army in place of Joab. And Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Jether the Israelite, who had gone in to Abigail, the daughter of Nahash, the sister of Zeruiah, the mother of Joab.

²⁶And Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.

²⁷And it happened, when David came to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim,

²⁸a bed, and basins, and a potter's vessel, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and roasted grain, and beans, and lentils, and roasted grain,

²⁹and honey, and curds, and a flock, and cheeses of the cattle, they brought to David and to the people who were with him, to eat; for they said, "The people are hungry and exhausted and thirsty in the wilderness."