Then someone told David saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David prayed, “Adonai, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”
Now when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, arose, went to his home in his hometown set his house in order, and hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.
Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Let them set up a gallows 50 cubits high, and in the morning ask the king to have Mordecai hanged on it. Then go happily with the king to the banquet.” This idea delighted Haman and he ordered the gallows to be built.
But when it came to the king’s attention, he issued a written edict that the wicked scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. (
“Then I will draw near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers those who extort a worker’s wage, or oppress the widow or an orphan, those who mislead a stranger. They do not fear Me,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
So you will rejoice before Adonai your God in the place Adonai your God chooses to make His Name dwell—you, your son and daughter, slave and maid, Levite and outsider, orphan and widow in your midst.
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.