2 Samuel 19:6-23

6by loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you. For you have revealed today that 1commanders and servants are nothing to you; for I know today that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then it would be right 2as far as you are concerned. 7Now therefore arise, go out and speak 3kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, 4no man will stay the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the misfortune that has 5happened to you from your youth until now!” 8So the king got up and sat at the gate. When they told all the people, saying, “Behold, the king is 6sitting at the gate,” then all the people came before the king.

Now 7Israel had fled, each to his tent. 9And all the people were quarreling throughout the tribes of Israel, saying, “8The king rescued us from the 9hands of our enemies and 10saved us from the 11hands of the Philistines, but now 12he 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 word to 13Zadok 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; 14you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?’ 13And say to 15Amasa, ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? 16May God do so to me, and more so, if you will not be 17commander of the army 18for me continually, 19in place of Joab.’” 14So he turned the hearts of all the men of Judah 20as 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 the men of Judah came to 21Gilgal in order to go to meet the king, to escort the king across the Jordan.

16Then 22Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite who was from Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. 17And there were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, and 23Ziba 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 crossed the shallow places repeatedly 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. 19And he said to the king, “24May my lord not consider me guilty, nor call to mind what your servant did wrong on the day when my lord the king went out from Jerusalem, so that the king would 25take it to heart. 20For your servant knows that I have sinned; so behold, I have come today, 26the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.” 21But Abishai the son of Zeruiah responded, “27Should Shimei not be put to death for this, 28the fact that he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” 22David then said, “29What 30is there between you and me, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should be an adversary to me today? 31Should anyone be put to death in Israel today? For do I not know that I am king over Israel today?” 23So the king said to Shimei, “32You shall not die.” The king also swore to him.