When the Ammonites realized that Aram had fled, they retreated from before Abishai and entered the city. Then Joab turned away from fighting against the Ammonites, and he came to Jerusalem.
So David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will cause more harm for us than Absalom. You take your lord’s servants and pursue after him. Otherwise, he will find fortified cities and escape from our sight.”
But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid. He struck down the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David made an oath with him, saying, “You shall no longer come out with us to battle, so that you do not extinguish the lamp of Israel.”
Now Abishai, the brother of Joab and son of Zeruiah, was chief of the thirty. He wielded his spear against three hundred men and killed them, and won a name beside the three.
Also Abishai himself, the brother of Joab, was a captain of the three who lifted his spear in triumph over three hundred slain and was given a name among the three.
King David also dedicated these to the Lord, together with the silver and gold which he had carried away from all the surrounding nations, from Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek.
Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying, “Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?” And Abishai said, “I will go down with you.”
Then Abishai said to David, “God has today delivered your enemy into your hand. Now please let me strike him with the spear through to the ground with one stroke, and I will not strike him a second time.”