1. Joab son of Zeruiah knew that King David missed Absalom very much.
2. So Joab sent messengers to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. Joab said to this wise woman, “Please pretend to be very sad. Put on sackcloth. Don’t dress up. Act like a woman who has been crying many days for someone who died.
3. Go to the king and talk to him using these words that I tell you.” Then Joab told the wise woman what to say.
4. Then the woman from Tekoa talked to the king. She bowed with her face to the ground. Then she said, “King, please help me!”
5. King David said to her, “What’s your problem?” The woman said, “I am a widow. My husband is dead.
6. I had two sons. They were out in the field fighting. There was no one to stop them. One son killed the other son.
7. Now the whole family is against me. They said to me, ‘Bring us the son who killed his brother and we will kill him, because he killed his brother.’ My son is like the last spark of a fire. If they kill my son, that fire will burn out and be finished. He is the only son left alive to get his father’s property. So my dead husband’s property will go to someone else and his name will be removed from the land.”
8. Then the king said to the woman, “Go home. I will take care of things for you.”