11. Then she said, I pray you, let the king remember the Lord your God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son. And David said, As the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of your son fall to the earth.
12. Then the woman said, Let your handmaid, I pray you, speak one word to my lord the king. He said, Say on.
13. [She] said, Why then have you planned such a thing against God's people? For in speaking this word the king is like one who is guilty, in that [he] does not bring home his banished one.
14. We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. And God does not take away life, but devises means so that he who is banished may not be an utter outcast from Him.
15. And now I have come to speak of this thing to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. And I thought, I will speak to the king; it may be that he will perform the request of his servant.
16. For the king will hear to deliver his handmaid from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from [Israel] the inheritance of God.
17. And the woman said, The word of my lord the king will now give me rest and security, for as an angel of God is my lord the king to hear and discern good and evil. May the Lord your God be with you!
18. Then the king said to the woman, Hide not from me anything I ask you. And the woman said, Let my lord the king speak.