But the king gave this order, “He may return to his home, but he's not to come and see me.” So Absalom returned to his own home, but he didn't go and see the king.
“Look here,” said Absalom, “I sent for you, saying, ‘Come here. I want you to go to the king and ask: Why did I bother coming back from Geshur? It would have been better for me to stay there.’ So go and arrange for me to see the king, and if I'm guilty of anything, he can kill me.”
For I, your servant, made this promise while living at Geshur in Aram, saying: ‘If the Lord does bring me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the Lord in Hebron.’”
The king broke down. He went up to the room over the gate and cried. As he walked, he sobbed out, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I'd died instead of you, Absalom, my son, my son!”
(Never in his life had his father corrected him. He'd never asked him, “Why did you do that?” He was also very good-looking, and had been born after Absalom.)
“You know that the kingdom was mine,” he declared, “and everyone in Israel was looking forward to me being their next king. But everything was turned upside down, and the kingdom passed to my brother, because that's what the Lord wanted.
These were the sons of David born to him in Hebron: The firstborn was Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam of Jezreel. The second was Daniel, whose mother was Abigail of Carmel.
Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took over the whole region of Argob right up to the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites and changed the name of Bashan to Havvoth-jair after himself, which is still its name to this day.
The man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. She was a wise and beautiful woman, but her husband was cruel and treated people badly. He was a descendant of Caleb.
During that time David and his men were raiding the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. These people had lived in the land as far as Shur and Egypt from ancient times.