1. And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me, I pray, choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David to-night;
2. and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only;
3. and I will bring back all the people to thee. The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: all the people shall be in peace.
4. And the saying was right in the eyes of Absalom, and in the eyes of all the elders of Israel.
5. And Absalom said, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and we will hear also what he says.
6. And Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom spoke to him saying, Ahithophel has spoken after this manner: shall we carry out his word? If not, speak thou.
7. And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good.
8. And Hushai said, Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are of exasperated spirit, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
9. Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or some such place; and it will come to pass, when some of them fall at the first, whoever heareth it will say, There has been slaughter among the people that follow Absalom,
10. and even the valiant man whose heart is as the heart of a lion shall utterly melt; for all Israel knows that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are with him are valiant men.
11. But I counsel that all Israel be speedily gathered to thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.
12. And we shall come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falls on the ground; and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one.
13. And if he withdraw into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the torrent, until there be not one small stone found there.