1
Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:
2
and I will come on him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people who are with him shall flee; and I will strike the king only;
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and I will bring back all the people to you: the man whom you seek is as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.
4
The saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.
5
Then said Absalom, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he says.
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When Hushai was come to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, Ahithophel has spoken after this manner: shall we do [after] his saying? if not, speak up.
7
Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good.
8
Hushai said moreover, You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are fierce in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and your father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
9
Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some [other] place: and it will happen, when some of them are fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.
10
Even he who is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt; for all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men.
11
But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together to you, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that you go to battle in your own person.
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So shall we come on him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light on him as the dew falls on the ground; and of him and of all the men who are with him we will not leave so much as one.
13
Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there not be one small stone found there.
14
Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom.