Then Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize this will only end in bitterness? How long before you tell the troops to stop pursuing their brothers? ”

“As God lives,” Joab replied, “if you had not spoken up, the troops wouldn’t have stopped pursuing their brothers until morning.”

When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside to the middle of the city gate, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died in revenge for the death of Asahel,[fn] Joab’s brother.

Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner because he had put their brother Asahel to death in the battle at Gibeon.

But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the LORD lives, the one who has redeemed my life from every distress,

and brought it with the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on the hill. Ahio walked in front of the ark.

and he asked Amnon, “Why are you, the king’s son, so miserable every morning? Won’t you tell me? ”

Amnon replied, “I’m in love with Tamar, my brother Absalom’s sister.”

David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Please go to your brother Amnon’s house and prepare a meal for him.”

Then Tamar went to his house while Amnon was lying down. She took dough, kneaded it, made cakes in his presence, and baked them.

“Bring the meal to the bedroom,” Amnon told Tamar, “so I can eat from your hand.” Tamar took the cakes she had made and went to her brother Amnon’s bedroom.

“Don’t, my brother! ” she cried. “Don’t disgrace me, for such a thing should never be done in Israel. Don’t commit this outrage!

“No,” she cried,[fn] “sending me away is much worse than the great wrong you’ve already done to me! ”

But he refused to listen to her.

Her brother Absalom said to her, “Has your brother Amnon been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister. He is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” So Tamar lived as a desolate woman in the house of her brother Absalom.

“If not,” Absalom said, “please let my brother Amnon go with us.”

The king asked him, “Why should he go with you? ”

But Jonadab, son of David’s brother Shimeah, spoke up: “My lord must not think they have killed all the young men, the king’s sons, because only Amnon is dead. In fact, Absalom has planned this[fn] ever since the day Amnon disgraced his sister Tamar.

“Now the whole clan has risen up against your servant and said, ‘Hand over the one who killed his brother so we may put him to death for the life of the brother he murdered. We will eliminate the heir! ’ They would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on earth.”

“but if you return to the city and tell Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, Your Majesty! Previously, I was your father’s servant, but now I will be your servant,’ then you can counteract Ahithophel’s counsel for me.

Suddenly, all the men of Israel came to the king. They asked him, “Why did our brothers, the men of Judah, take you away secretly and transport the king and his household across the Jordan, along with all of David’s men? ”

Amasa was not on guard against the sword in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach with it and spilled his intestines out on the ground. Joab did not stab him again, and Amasa died.

Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.

Among the Thirty were

Joab’s brother Asahel,

Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem,