¹¹And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Phurah his servant unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host.

²⁰Then said Absalom to Ahithophel, Give counsel among you what we shall do.

¹Moreover Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this 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 unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace.

⁴For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together.

⁵They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away.

⁶Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail.

¹⁴Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.

¹⁸Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.

²²A wise man scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof.

⁶For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.

¹⁴There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:

¹⁵Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.

¹⁶Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

³¹Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

²But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:

¹⁹But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

⁶They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

²⁶Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?

⁸Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

¹O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

²The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.

³Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.

⁹Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

⁵And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

²⁵Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.

²⁶And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

²⁹Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.

³⁰And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.

¹¹Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

¹²And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

⁵For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.

¹⁹Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

²⁰And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:

²¹Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹⁵Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.

¹⁶Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

⁹Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen.