16
Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, Lodge not this night in the plains of the wilderness, but speedily pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people that [are] with him.
17
Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel; for they might not be seen to come into the city: and a maid servant went and told them; and they went and told king David.
18
Nevertheless, a lad saw them, and told Absalom: but they went both of them away quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his court; into which they descended.
19
And the woman took and spread a covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground corn upon it; and the thing was not known.
20
And when Absalom's servants came to the woman to the house, they said, Where [is] Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them, they have gone over the brook of water. And when they had sought and could not find [them], they returned to Jerusalem.
21
And it came to pass, after they had departed, that they came out of the well, and went and told king David, and said to David, Arise, and pass quickly over the water: for thus hath Ahithophel counseled against you.
22
Then David arose, and all the people that [were] with him, and they passed over Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them that had not gone over Jordan.
23
And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled [his] ass, and arose, and went home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died. and was buried in the sepulcher of his father.
24
Then David came to Mahanaim. And Absalom passed over Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him.
25
And Absalom made Amasa captain of the host instead of Joab: which Amasa [was] a man's son, whose name [was] Ithra, an Israelite, that went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah, Joab's mother.
26
So Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.