As for you, do not stop pursuing your enemies, but attack them from behind. Do not let them go back to their cities, for the Lord your God has given them into your hand.”
If he withdraws into a city, then all of Israel will bring ropes to that city. We will raze it until it is a valley, until there cannot be found there even a pebble.”
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.”
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities and let us perish there. For the Lord our God has doomed us and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.
When Joshua and the Israelites had finished striking them with overwhelming force until they were completely defeated, the survivors escaped from them and went back to their fortified cities.