16. Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, ‘Don’t lodge tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people who are with him.’”
17. Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying by En Rogel; and a female servant used to go and tell them; and they went and told king David. For they might not be seen to come into the city.
18. But a boy saw them, and told Absalom. Then they both went away quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his court; and they went down there.
19. The woman took and spread the covering over the well’s mouth, and spread out crushed grain on it; and nothing was known.
20. Absalom’s servants came to the woman to the house; and they said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?”The woman said to them, “They have gone over the brook of water.”When they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.
21. After they had departed, they came up out of the well, and went and told king David; and they said to David, “Arise and pass quickly over the water; for thus has Ahithophel counselled against you.”
22. Then David arose, and all the people who were with him, and they passed over the Jordan. By the morning light there lacked not one of them who had not gone over the Jordan.
23. When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, arose, and went home, to his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father.
24. Then David came to Mahanaim. Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him.
25. Absalom set Amasa over the army instead of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Ithra the Israelite, who went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah, Joab’s mother.