1. All Israel gathered around David at Hebron. “We are your own flesh and blood,” they said.
2. “Even in the past when Saul ruled, you were the one who led Israel on its campaigns to war. The Lord your God has said to you, ‘You will be shepherd of my people Israel, the leader of my people Israel.’ ”
3. All the leaders of Israel had come to Hebron. David made an agreement with them at Hebron in front of the Lord. So they anointed David king of Israel, as the Lord had spoken through Samuel.
4. David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (that is, Jebus). The Jebusites were living in that region.
5. They told David, “You will never get in here.” But David captured the fortress Zion (that is, the City of David).
6. Now, David said, “Whoever is the first to kill a Jebusite will be made a general and a prince.” Zeruiah’s son Joab was the first to go ⌊into Jerusalem⌋, so he became the general.
7. David lived in the fortress, so it was called the City of David.
8. He built the city ⌊of Jerusalem⌋ around it, starting from the Millo and making a complete circuit. Joab rebuilt the rest of the city.
9. David continued to grow more powerful because the Lord of Armies was with him.
10. Now, these were the commanders of David’s fighting men, who exercised power with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel they made him king according to the Lord’s word to Israel.
11. The first of David’s fighting men was Jashobeam, son of Hachmon, the leader of the three. He used his spear to kill 300 men on one occasion.
12. Next in rank to him was Eleazar, another one of the three fighting men. He was the son of Dodo and grandson of Aho.
13. Eleazar was with David at Pas Dammim when the Philistines gathered there for battle. There was a field of ripe barley. When the troops fled from the Philistines,
14. they stood in the middle of the field and defended it by killing Philistines. So the Lord saved ⌊them⌋ with an impressive victory.
15. Once three of the thirty leading men went down to David’s rock at the cave of Adullam when the army of the Philistines was camping in the valley of Rephaim.
16. While David was in the fortified camp, Philistine troops were in Bethlehem.
17. David was thirsty and said, “I wish I could have a drink of water from the cistern at the city gate of Bethlehem.”