14. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither does God respect any person: yet does he devise means, that his banished one be not expelled from him.
15. Now therefore that I am come to speak of this thing unto my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid: and your handmaid said, I will now speak unto the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his handmaid.
16. For the king will hear, to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.
17. Then your handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD your God will be with you.
18. Then the king answered and said unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray you, the thing that I shall ask you. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak.
19. And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with you in all this? And the woman answered and said, As your soul lives, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken: for your servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of your handmaid:
20. To bring about this change of affairs has your servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.
21. And the king said unto Joab, Behold now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring the young man Absalom again.
22. And Joab fell to the ground on his face, and bowed himself, and thanked the king: and Joab said, Today your servant knows that I have found grace in your sight, my lord, O king, in that the king has fulfilled the request of his servant.
23. So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.
24. And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king's face.
25. But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.
26. And when he cut the hair of his head, (for it was at every year's end that he cut it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he cut it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight.
27. And unto Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar: she was a woman of a fair countenance.
28. So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king's face.