2 Samuel 19:6-23

6by loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you. For you have shown today that 1princes and servants are nothing to you; for I know this day that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then 2you would be pleased. 7Now therefore arise, go out and speak 3kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, surely 4not a man will pass the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.” 8So the king arose and sat in the gate. When they told all the people, saying, “Behold, the king is 5sitting in the gate,” then all the people came before the king.

Now 6Israel had fled, each to his tent. 9All the people were quarreling throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “7The king delivered us from the 8hand of our enemies and 9saved us from the 10hand of the Philistines, but now 11he has fled out of the land from Absalom. 10However, Absalom, whom we anointed over us, has died in battle. Now then, why are you silent about bringing the king back?”

11Then King David sent to 12Zadok and Abiathar the priests, saying, “Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, ‘Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house, since the word of all Israel has come to the king, even to his house? 12You are my brothers; 13you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?’ 13Say to 14Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? 15May God do so to me, and more also, if you will not be 16commander of the army before me continually 17in place of Joab.’” 14Thus he turned the hearts of all the men of Judah 18as one man, so that they sent word to the king, saying, “Return, you and all your servants.” 15The king then returned and came as far as the Jordan. And Judah came to 19Gilgal in order to go to meet the king, to bring the king across the Jordan.

16Then 20Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite who was from Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. 17There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, with 21Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they rushed to the Jordan before the king. 18Then they kept crossing the ford to bring over the king’s household, and to do what was good in his sight. And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king as he was about to cross the Jordan. 19So he said to the king, “22Let not my lord consider me guilty, nor remember what your servant did wrong on the day when my lord the king came out from Jerusalem, so that the king would 23take it to heart. 20For your servant knows that I have sinned; therefore behold, I have come today, 24the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.” 21But Abishai the son of Zeruiah said, “25Should not Shimei be put to death for this, 26because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” 22David then said, “27What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be an adversary to me? 28Should any man be put to death in Israel today? For do I not know that I am king over Israel today?” 23The king said to Shimei, “29You shall not die.” Thus the king swore to him.