In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Of the Hebronites, Jerijah was chief of the Hebronites. (In the fortieth year of David’s reign search was made of whatever genealogy or family and men of great ability among them were found at Jazer in Gilead.)
For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the vines of Sibmah, whose clusters once made drunk the lords of the nations, reached to Jazer and strayed to the desert; their shoots once spread abroad and crossed over the sea.
More than for Jazer I weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your branches crossed over the sea, reached as far as Jazer; upon your summer fruits and your vintage the destroyer has fallen.
So I will kindle a fire against the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour its strongholds, with shouting on the day of battle, with a storm on the day of the whirlwind;
When you approach the frontier of the Ammonites, do not harass them or engage them in battle, for I will not give the land of the Ammonites to you as a possession, because I have given it to the descendants of Lot.’
(Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. In fact, his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide.)