2 Samuel 17

¹And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me, I pray, choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David to-night;

²and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people that are with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only;

³and I will bring back all the people to thee. The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: all the people shall be in peace.

⁴And the saying was right in the eyes of Absalom, and in the eyes of all the elders of Israel.

⁵And Absalom said, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and we will hear also what he says.

⁶And Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom spoke to him saying, Ahithophel has spoken after this manner: shall we carry out his word? If not, speak thou.

⁷And Hushai said to Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good.

⁸And Hushai said, Thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are of exasperated spirit, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field; and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.

⁹Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or some such place; and it will come to pass, when some of them fall at the first, whoever heareth it will say, There has been slaughter among the people that follow Absalom,

¹⁰and even the valiant man whose heart is as the heart of a lion shall utterly melt; for all Israel knows that thy father is a mighty man, and they that are with him are valiant men.

¹¹But I counsel that all Israel be speedily gathered to thee, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.