1
Moreover Ahithophel said to 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 to 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 had come to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do [after] his saying? if not, speak thou.
7
And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel hath given, [is] not good at this time.
8
For, said Hushai, 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] overthrown at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.
10
And he also [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] who [are] with him [are] valiant men.
11
Therefore I counsel that all Israel should be generally gathered to thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that [is] by the sea for multitude; and that thou shouldst go to battle in thy own person.