2 Samuel 14:2-20

2So Joab sent to 1Tekoa and 2brought a wise woman from there and said to her, “Please pretend to be a mourner, and put on mourning garments now, and do not 3anoint yourself with oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days; 3then go to the king and speak to him in this manner.” So Joab put 4the words in her mouth.

4Now when the woman of Tekoa 5spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and 6prostrated herself and said, “7Help, O king.” 5The king said to her, “What is your trouble?” And she 8answered, “Truly I am a widow, for my husband is dead. 6Your maidservant had two sons, but the two of them struggled together in the field, and there was no 9one to separate them, so one struck the other and killed him. 7Now behold, 10the whole family has risen against your maidservant, and they say, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, 11and destroy the heir also.’ Thus they will extinguish my coal which is left, so as to 12leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

8Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” 9The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “O my lord, the king, 13the iniquity is on me and my father’s house, but 14the king and his throne are guiltless.” 10So the king said, “Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore.” 11Then she said, “Please let the king remember the Lord your God, 15so that the avenger of blood will not continue to destroy, otherwise they will destroy my son.” And he said, “16As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”

12Then the woman said, “Please let your maidservant speak a word to my lord the king.” And he said, “Speak.” 13The woman said, “17Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back 18his banished one. 14For 19we will surely die and are 20like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans 21ways so that 22the banished one will not be cast out from him. 15Now 23the reason I have come to speak this word to my lord the king is that the people have made me afraid; so your maidservant said, ‘Let me now speak to the king, perhaps the king will perform the 24request of his maidservant. 16For the king will hear 25and deliver his maidservant from the 26hand of the man who would destroy 27both me and my son from 28the inheritance of God.’ 17Then your maidservant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king be 29comforting, for as 30the angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and evil. And may the Lord your God be with you.’”

18Then the king answered and said to the woman, “Please do not hide anything from me that I am about to ask you.” And the woman said, “Let my lord the king please speak.” 19So the king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” And the woman replied, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was 31your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your maidservant; 20in order to change the appearance of things your servant Joab has done this thing. But my lord is wise, 32like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all that is in the earth.”