3
And the people answered: Thou shalt not go forth: for if we flee away, they will not much mind us: or if half of us should fall, they will not greatly care: for thou alone art accounted for ten thousand: it is better therefore that thou shouldst be in the city to succour us.
4
And the king said to them: What seemeth good to you, that will I do. And the king stood by the gate: and all the people went forth by their troops, by hundreds and by thousands.
5
And the king commanded Joab, and Abisai, and Ethai, saying: Save me the boy Absalom. And all the people heard the king giving charge to all the princes concerning Absalom.
6
So the people went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim.
7
And the people of Israel were defeated there by David’s army, and a great slaughter was made that day of twenty thousand men.
8
And the battle there was scattered over the face of all the country, and there were many more of the people whom the forest consumed, than whom the sword devoured that day.
9
And it happened that Absalom met the servants of David, riding on a mule: and as the mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and the earth, the mule on which he rode passed on.
10
And one saw this and told Joab, saying: I saw Absalom hanging upon an oak.
11
And Joab said to the man that told him: If thou sawest him, why didst thou not stab him to the ground, and I would have given thee ten sicles of silver, and a belt?
12
And he said to Joab: If thou wouldst have paid down in my hands a thousand pieces of silver, I would not lay my hands upon the king’s son for in our hearing the king charged thee, and Abisai, and Ethai, saying: Save me the boy Absalom.
13
Yea and if I should have acted boldly against my own life, this could not have been hid from the king, and wouldst thou have stood by me?