Since Gilead is full of evil, they will certainly come to nothing. They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal; even their altars will be like piles of rocks on the furrows of a field.
Faithful people have vanished from the land; there is no one upright among the people. All of them wait in ambush to shed blood; they hunt each other with a net.
Hear this, priests! Pay attention, house of Israel! Listen, royal house! For the judgement applies to you because you have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread out on Tabor.
for I was like a docile lamb led to slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plots against me: ‘Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit; let’s cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will no longer be remembered.’
Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their works are sinful works, and violent acts are in their hands.
‘You also know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me and what he did to the two commanders of Israel’s army, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He murdered them in a time of peace to avenge blood shed in war. He spilled that blood on his own waistband and on the sandals of his feet.
They were at the great stone in Gibeon when Amasa joined them. Joab was wearing his uniform and over it was a belt round his waist with a sword in its sheath. As he approached, the sword fell out.
When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside to the middle of the city gate, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died in revenge for the death of Asahel, Joab’s brother.
From the tribe of Gad they gave: Ramoth in Gilead, the city of refuge for the one who commits manslaughter, with its pasturelands, Mahanaim with its pasturelands,
