1
Moreover Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:
2
and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only;
3
and I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.
4
And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.
5
Then said Absalom, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he saith.
6
And when Hushai was come to Absalom, Absalom spake unto him, saying, Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do [after] his saying? if not, speak thou.
7
And Hushai said unto Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel hath given this time is not good.
8
Hushai said moreover, Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
9
Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some [other] place: and it will come to pass, when some of them are fallen at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.
10
And even he that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt; for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are with him are valiant men.
11
But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together unto thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.