11. When the things that all the Israelites were saying reached the king, David sent a message to the priests Zadok and Abiathar: "Say the following to the elders of Judah: ‘Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his palace?
12. You are my relatives! You are my flesh and bones! Why should you be the last to bring the king back?’
13. And tell Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my flesh and bones too? May God deal harshly with me and worse still if you don’t become commander of my army from now on instead of Joab!’"
14. So he won over the hearts of everyone in Judah as though they were one person, and they sent word to the king: "Come back—you and all your servants."
15. So the king came back and arrived at the Jordan River. Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and bring him across the Jordan.
16. Gera’s son Shimei, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, hurried down with the people of Judah to meet King David.
17. A thousand men from Benjamin were with him. Ziba too, the servant of Saul’s house, along with his fifteen sons and twenty servants, rushed to the Jordan ahead of the king