1Then Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Let me choose twelve thousand men. I will set out and chase after David tonight."
2"I will come on him while he is tired and weak, and I will make him afraid. All the people with him will run away, and I will strike down the king alone."
3"Then I will bring all the people back to you. When the man you are looking for is dead, it will be as if everyone had returned. So all the people will be at peace."
4Absalom was very pleased with this plan, and so were all the elders of Israel.
5Then Absalom said, "Now call Hushai the Archite as well, and let us hear what he says too."
6When Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom said to him, "This is what Ahithophel has said. Shall we do what he says? If not, you speak."
7Hushai said to Absalom, "The advice that Ahithophel has given is not good this time."
8Hushai said, "You know your father and his men. They are strong fighters, and they are as fierce as a bear in the field whose cubs have been taken from her. Your father is a man of war. He will not spend the night with the people."
9"Look, by now he is hiding in some pit, or in some other place. If some of your men are struck down first, then whoever hears of it will say, 'There has been a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.'"
10"Then even the brave man, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will completely lose his courage. For all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and that those who are with him are brave men."
11"So this is my advice. Let all Israel be gathered to you, from Dan to Beersheba, as many as the sand by the sea. And go into battle yourself."
12"Then we will come on him wherever he is found, and we will fall on him as the dew falls on the ground. Not one of him or of all the men with him will be left."
13"And if he has gone into a city, then all Israel will bring ropes to that city. We will drag it down into the river, until not one small stone is left there."
14Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than the advice of Ahithophel." For the LORD had decided to ruin the good advice of Ahithophel, so that the LORD might bring disaster on Absalom.
15Then Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, "Ahithophel advised Absalom and the elders of Israel in this way, and I advised them in that way."
16"So send word quickly now and tell David, 'Do not spend the night in the plains of the wilderness, but cross over at once. If you do not, the king will be swallowed up, and all the people with him.'"
17Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were waiting at Enrogel, for they must not be seen coming into the city. A servant girl went and told them, and they went and told King David.
18But a boy saw them and told Absalom. So the two of them went away quickly and came to the house of a man in Bahurim. He had a well in his courtyard, and they climbed down into it.
19The woman took a covering and spread it over the mouth of the well, and spread ground corn on it. So nothing was known about it.
20When Absalom's servants came to the woman at the house, they said, "Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?" The woman said to them, "They have gone over the brook of water." When they had searched and could not find them, they went back to Jerusalem.
21After they had gone, the two men came up out of the well and went and told King David. They said to David, "Get up and cross the water quickly, for this is the advice Ahithophel has given against you."
22Then David got up, and all the people with him, and they crossed the Jordan. By the time the morning light came, there was not one of them who had not crossed the Jordan.
23When Ahithophel saw that his advice was not followed, he saddled his donkey and set out and went home to his house, in his own city. He put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in his father's tomb.
24Then David came to Mahanaim. And Absalom crossed the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him.
25Absalom made Amasa captain of the army in place of Joab. This Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra, an Israelite, who had gone in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, the sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother.
27When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim,
28brought beds, and bowls, and clay pots, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and roasted corn, and beans, and lentils, and roasted pulse,
29and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese from cows, for David and for the people with him to eat. For they said, "The people are hungry and tired and thirsty in the wilderness."