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¹ Moreover Achitofel said to Avshalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night: ² and I will come on him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people who are with him shall flee; and I will strike the king only; ³ and I will bring back all the people to you: the man whom you seek is as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in shalom. ⁴ The saying pleased Avshalom well, and all the Zakenim of Yisra'el. ⁵ Then said Avshalom, Call now Hushai the Arki also, and let us hear likewise what he says. ⁶ When Hushai was come to Avshalom, Avshalom spoke to him, saying, Achitofel has spoken after this manner: shall we do [after] his saying? if not, speak up. ⁷ Hushai said to Avshalom, The counsel that Achitofel has given this time is not good. ⁸ Hushai said moreover, You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are fierce in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and your 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 happen, when some of them are fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, There is a slaughter among the people who follow Avshalom. ¹⁰ Even he who is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt; for all Yisra'el knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men. ¹¹ But I counsel that all Yisra'el be gathered together to you, from Dan even to Be'er-Sheva, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that you go to battle in your own person. ¹² So shall we come on him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light on him as the dew falls on the ground; and of him and of all the men who are with him we will not leave so much as one. ¹³ Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Yisra'el bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there not be one small stone found there. ¹⁴ Avshalom and all the men of Yisra'el said, The counsel of Hushai the Arki is better than the counsel of Achitofel. For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Achitofel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil on Avshalom.

¹⁵ Then said Hushai to Tzadok and to Avyatar the Kohanim, Thus and thus did Achitofel counsel Avshalom and the Zakenim of Yisra'el; and thus and thus have I counseled. ¹⁶ Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, Don't lodge this night at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people who are with him. ¹⁷ Now Yonatan and Achima`atz were staying by `En-Rogel; and a maid-servant used to go and tell them; and they went and told king David: for they might not be seen to come into the city. ¹⁸ But a boy saw them, and told Avshalom: and they went both of them away quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bachurim, who had a well in his court; and they went down there. ¹⁹ The woman took and spread the covering over the well's mouth, and strewed bruised grain thereon; and nothing was known. ²⁰ Avshalom's servants came to the woman to the house; and they said, Where are Achima`atz and Yonatan? The woman said to them, They have gone over the brook of water. When they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Yerushalayim. ²¹ It happened, after they had departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David; and they said to David, Arise you, and pass quickly over the water; for thus has Achitofel counseled against you.

²² Then David arose, and all the people who were with him, and they passed over the Yarden: by the morning light there lacked not one of them who had not gone over the Yarden. ²³ When Achitofel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, and arose, and got him home, to his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father. ²⁴ Then David came to Machanayim. Avshalom passed over the Yarden, he and all the men of Yisra'el with him. ²⁵ Avshalom set `Amasa over the host instead of Yo'av. Now `Amasa was the son of a man, whose name was Yitra the Yisra'elite, who went in to Avigayil the daughter of Nachash, sister to Tzeru'yah, Yo'av's mother. ²⁶ Yisra'el and Avshalom encamped in the land of Gil`ad. <sup>27</sup> It happened, when David was come to Machanayim, that Shovi the son of Nachash of Rabbah of the children of `Ammon, and Makhir the son of `Ammi'el of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gil`adite of Roglim, ²⁸ brought beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and meal, and parched [grain], and beans, and lentils, and parched [pulse], ²⁹ and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of the herd, for David, and for the people who were with him, to eat: for they said, The people are hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.