3. The people slipped into the city stealthily that day as humiliated people steal away when they flee in battle.
4. But the king covered his face and cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!
5. And Joab came into the house to the king and said, You have today covered the faces of all your servants with shame, who this day have saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and concubines.
6. For you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have declared today that princes and servants are nothing to you; for today I see that if Absalom had lived and all the rest of us had died, you would be well pleased.
7. So now arise, go out and speak kindly and encouragingly to your servants; for I swear by the Lord that if you do not go, not a man will remain with you this night. And this will be worse for you than all the evil that has befallen you from your youth until now.
8. Then the king arose and sat in the gate. And all [his followers] were told, The king is sitting in the gate, and they all came before the king. Now Israel [Absalom's troops] had fled, every man to his home.
9. And all the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king delivered us from the hands of our enemies, and he saved us from the hands of the Philistines. And now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.
10. And Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. So now, why do you say nothing about bringing back the king?
11. And King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, Say to the elders of Judah, Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel has come to the king, to bring him to his house?
12. You are my kinsmen; you are my bone and my flesh. Why then are you the last to bring back the king?
13. And say to Amasa, Are you not of my bone and of my flesh? May God do so to me, and more also, if you are not commander of my army hereafter in place of Joab.
14. He inclined the hearts of all the men of Judah as one man, so they sent word to [him], Return, you and all your servants.
15. So [David] returned and came to the Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king, to conduct him over the Jordan.
16. And Shimei son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, hastily came down with the men of Judah to meet King David,
17. And 1,000 men of Benjamin with him. And Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and twenty servants with him, rushed to the Jordan and pressed quickly into the king's presence.
18. And there went over a ferryboat to bring over the king's household and to do what he thought good. And Shimei son of Gera fell down before the king as David came to the Jordan,