The whole land wept with a loud voice as all the people passed by. Now the king was crossing over the brook Kidron, and all of the people were crossing over on the road to the wilderness.
So David said to Ittai, “Go on, pass by.” So Ittai the Gittite passed by, along with all of his men and all of the children and elderly who were with him.
The king said to Ziba, “Why do you have these things?” Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the household of the king to ride. The bread and the summer fruit are for the servants to eat. The wine is for those who become weary in the wilderness to drink.”
In addition he even deposed his grandmother Maacah as queen, because she had made an idol in a grove. Asa destroyed her idol and burned it by the Kidron brook.
Then the priests came into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they removed everything that they found that was unclean in the main hall of the temple of the Lord to the court. And the Levites took those things and brought them out to the Kidron Valley.
The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the Kidron Valley, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, will be holy to the Lord. It will not be plucked up nor thrown down any more forever.
For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’ ”