5
The king commanded Yo'av and Avishai and Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Avshalom. All the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Avshalom.
6
So the people went out into the field against Yisra'el: and the battle was in the forest of Efrayim.
7
The people of Yisra'el were struck there before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men.
8
For the battle was there spread over the surface of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.
9
Avshalom happened to meet the servants of David. Avshalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the sky and eretz; and the mule that was under him went on.