10
Then even the bravest men, as fearless as lions, will be afraid because everyone in Israel knows that your father is a great soldier and that his men are hard fighters.
11
My advice is that you bring all the Israelites together from one end of the country to the other, as many as the grains of sand on the seashore, and that you lead them personally in battle.
12
We will find David wherever he is, and attack him before he knows what's happening. Neither he nor any of his men will survive.
13
If he retreats into a city, our people will all bring ropes and just pull the city into the valley below. Not a single stone will be left there on top of the hill."
14
Absalom and all the Israelites said, "Hushai's advice is better than Ahithophel's." The Lord had decided that Ahithophel's good advice would not be followed, so that disaster would come on Absalom.
15
Then Hushai told the priests Zadok and Abiathar what advice he had given to Absalom and the Israelite leaders and what advice Ahithophel had given.
16
Hushai added, "Quick, now! Send a message to David not to spend the night at the river crossings in the wilderness, but to cross the Jordan at once, so that he and his men won't all be caught and killed."
17
Abiathar's son Jonathan and Zadok's son Ahimaaz were waiting at the spring of Enrogel, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, because they did not dare be seen entering the city. A servant woman would regularly go and tell them what was happening, and then they would go and tell King David.
18
But one day a boy happened to see them, and he told Absalom; so they hurried off to hide in the house of a certain man in Bahurim. He had a well near his house, and they got down in it.
19
The man's wife took a covering, spread it over the opening of the well and scattered grain over it, so that no one would notice anything.
20
Absalom's officials came to the house and asked the woman, "Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?" "They crossed the river," she answered. The men looked for them but could not find them, and so they returned to Jerusalem.