3
the Ammonite leaders warned Hanun, "Do you for a minute suppose that David is honoring your father by sending you comforters? Don't you know that he's sent these men to snoop around the city and size it up so that he can capture it?"
4
So Hanun seized David's men, shaved them clean, cut off their robes half way up their buttocks, and sent them packing.
5
When this was all reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, for they were seriously humiliated. The king told them, "Stay in Jericho until your beards grow out; only then come back."
6
When it dawned on the Ammonites that as far as David was concerned, they stank to high heaven,
7
they hired, at a cost of a thousand talents of silver (thirty-seven and a half tons!), chariots and horsemen from the Arameans of Naharaim, Maacah, and Zobah - 32,000 chariots and drivers; plus the king of Maacah with his troops who came and set up camp at Medeba; the Ammonites, too, were mobilized from their cities and got ready for battle.
8
When David heard this, he dispatched Joab with his strongest fighters in full force.
9
The Ammonites marched out and spread out in battle formation at the city gate; the kings who had come as allies took up a position in the open fields.
10
When Joab saw that he had two fronts to fight, before and behind, he took his pick of the best of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans.
11
The rest of the army he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, and deployed them to deal with the Ammonites.
12
Then he said, "If the Arameans are too much for me, you help me; and if the Ammonites prove too much for you, I'll come and help you.
13
Courage! We'll fight might and main for our people and for the cities of our God. And God will do whatever he sees needs doing!"