A no-good Benjamite named Sheba blew a trumpet and declared secession from David. Many Israelites followed him, but the Judaites stayed with David.
When David got to his house in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines that Absalom had raped in front of all of Israel, and he put them in a ward home, and he took care of them, but he never had sex with them, or visited with them again. They lived as if they were widows.
Then David told Amesa, "Gather all the men you can and in three days, meet me here." Then he told Abishai, "That man Sheba is going to cause me more trouble than Absalom did. Take my servants and go after him." So he went, and took some of Joab's men and some Cherithites and Pelethites went also.
At the stone in Gibeon, Amesa travelled ahead of them. He was wearing Joab's clothes and he had a sword fastened to the garment, but the sword fell out. Joab grabbed Amesa by the beard as if he were going to kiss him and said, "Are you okay, brother?" Then he stabbed Amesa in the stomach, killing him. Then he and Abishai chased after Sheba.
Amesa's men refused to move until Amesa was taken out of the middle of the road and and covered up. Then everyone that followed Amesa, followed Joab to chase after Sheba.
All of the people that were with Joab battered the wall to throw it down, until an old lady in the city called for Joab to come to her to speak with her.
When he came to her, she said, "Aren't you Joab?"
He said, "Yes."
She said, "Back in the old days, if anyone needed a problem settled, they would come to Abel to settle the matter with wise counsel. Here you are wanting to destroy a historical city and an old lady. Why?"
He said, "I don't wish to do so. We only want Sheba because he has rebelled against the king."
She said, "If you will wait a moment, we will hand you his head over the wall."
She did as she said she would, and they cut off Sheba's head and threw it down to Joab, who then went back to Jerusalem to David.
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Sometimes violence can be avoided by simply talking out a problem. It is always better to stop violence before it hurts innocent people.
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