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Joab son of Zeruiah realised that the king’s heart longed for Absalom. 2 So Joab sent someone to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He said to her, “Pretend to be in mourning. Dress in mourning clothes and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned many days for the dead. 3 Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab told her what to say.
4 When the woman from Tekoa went before the king, she fell face down to the ground in homage and said, “Help me, O king!”
5 The king asked her, “What is it that troubles you?”
She answered, “Alas, I am a widow, and my husband is dead. 6 Your maidservant had two sons. They got into a fight with each other out in the field, and there was no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him. 7 Now the whole clan has risen up against your maidservant, and they say, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, so we can put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed; then we will wipe out the heir also’. Thus they would extinguish the only burning coal I have left, and leave to my husband neither name nor descendant on the face of the earth.”
8 The king said to the woman, “Go home, and I will give orders on your behalf.”
9 But the woman from Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, may the blame be on me and on my father’s house, but let the king and his throne be without guilt.”
10 The king replied, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he will never trouble you again.”
11 Then she said, “Please, may the king invoke the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to destroy, so that my son is not destroyed.”
“As the Lord lives,” the king said, “not one hair of your son will fall to the ground.”
12 Then the woman said, “Please let your maidservant speak a word to my lord the king.”
“Speak,” he replied.
13 The woman said, “Why then have you devised a similar thing as this against the people of God? When the king speaks as he does about this, does he not pronounce his own guilt? The king has not brought back his own banished son!
14“We must all die.
We are like water spilled on the ground,
which cannot be gathered up again.
Yet God does not take away life.
Instead He devises ways so that a person
who is banished from Him
does not remain estranged forever.
15 “And the reason that I have come to say this to my lord the king is because the people have made me afraid. Your maidservant thought, ‘I will speak to the king. Perhaps the king will do as I ask. 16 For the king surely the king will listen and agree to deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who is trying to cut both me and my son from the inheritance that God has given us’.
17 “Your maidservant thought, ‘May the word of my lord the king give me comfort, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and evil’. May the Lord your God be with you.”
18 Then the king said to the woman, “Please do not hide anything from me that I ask you.”
“Let my lord my king speak,” the woman replied.
19 The king asked, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”
The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that the lord my king has spoken. For it was your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your maidservant. 20 In order to change this present situation your servant Joab has done this thing. But my lord is wise, like the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are on the earth.”
21 The king said to Joab, “Very well, I will grant this request. Go and bring back the young man Absalom.”
22 Joab fell with his face to the ground in homage. Joab blessed the king and said, “Today your servant knows that he has found favour in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of his servant.”
23 So Joab left at once and went to Geshur, and he brought Absalom back to Jerusalem. 24 The king said, “He may go to his own house, but he may not see my face.” So Absalom returned to his own house, but he did not see the face of the king.
25 Now in all Israel there was no one to be so much praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. 26 When he cut the hair of his head—he used to cut his hair every year, because it became so heavy that he needed to cut it—he would weigh the hair from his head, and it would weigh two hundred shekels by the royal standard.
27 Three sons and a daughter were born to Absalom. The daughter’s name was Tamar, and she grew up to become a beautiful woman.
28 Absalom lived in Jerusalem two full years without seeing the king’s face. 29 Then Absalom sent for Joab in order to send him to the king, but Joab would not come to him. So he sent for Joab a second time, but he refused to come. 30 Then he said to his servants, “Look, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.
31 Then Joab did go to see Absalom at his house and said to him, “Why did your servants set my field on fire?”
32 Absalom answered Joab, “Look, I sent for you and said, ‘Come here. I want to send you to the king to ask, ‘Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to still be there’. Now then, let me see the king’s face. Then if I am guilty of anything, let him kill me.”
33 Joab went to the king and told him this. So the king summoned Absalom, and he came to the king and bowed down with his face to the ground before the king. And the king kissed Absalom.