1. Now Joab the son of Zeruiah recognized that the king’s mind was on Absalom.
2. So Joab sent a request to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He instructed her, “Act as if you are observing mourning rites. Put on mourning garments, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but act like a woman who has been mourning over the dead like this for many days.
3. Then come to the king and speak to him in this manner.” Thus Joab put the words in her mouth.
4. As the Tekoan woman spoke to the king, she fell on her face toward the ground and bowed low. Then she said, “Help me, O king.”
5. The king said to her, “What troubles you?”She responded, “Alas, I am a widow, and my husband is dead.
6. Furthermore, your servant had two sons. The two of them were fighting in the field, but there was no one to separate them. One struck the other and killed him.
7. Now the entire family has risen up against your maidservant, and they said, ‘Deliver him who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, and we will destroy the heir also.’ So they will extinguish my remaining ember, and leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”
8. Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.”
9. The Tekoan woman responded to the king, “May guilt rest upon me and the house of my father, my lord the king, and may the king and his throne be blameless.”