September 8, 2019

2 SAMUEL 14:12-26
14:12 Then the woman said, Let your servant speak a word to my lord the king. And he said, Speak.
14:13 And the woman said, Why then have you devised such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word, the king is like one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back his banished one.
14:14 For we must die and are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered again. Yet God does not take away life, but devises ways that the banished one would not be cast out from Him.
14:15 Now therefore that I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, it is because the people made me afraid; and your servant said, I will now speak to the king; perhaps the king will perform his servant’s request.
14:16 For the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.
14:17 Then your servant said, Let the word of my lord the king be a comfort to me, for as an angel of God is, so is my lord the king in discerning good and evil; and may Jehovah your God be with you.
14:18 And the king answered and said to the woman, Do not hide the matter from me which I will ask of you. And the woman said, Let my lord the king speak.
14:19 And the king said, Is the hand of Joab with you in all this? And the woman answered and said, As your soul lives, O my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or left of anything that my lord the king has said; for your servant Joab commanded me, and it is he who has put all these words in the mouth of your servant.
14:20 In order to change the appearance of the matter, your servant Joab did this thing; and my lord is wise, as wise as an angel of God, knowing all that there is in the land.
14:21 Then the king said to Joab, I will now do this thing; go therefore, and bring the young man Absalom back.
14:22 And Joab fell on his face to the ground and paid homage and blessed the king; and Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, O my lord the king, in that the king has granted his servant’s request.
14:23 Then Joab rose up and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.
14:24 And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, but let him not see my face. So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king’s face.
14:25 Now there was none in Israel to be praised more greatly for his beauty than Absalom; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.
14:26 And when he cut the hair of his head (and it was at the end of each year that he cut it, for it became heavy on him and he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, according to the king’s weight.