2 Samuel 14:2-11

The Woman of Tekoa

²So Joab sent a messenger to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, “Please follow mourning rites, and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with oil but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for many days. ³Then go to the king and speak to him in this way.” So Joab put the words in her mouth.

⁴Now when the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself, and said, “Help, O king!” ⁵And the king said to her, “What is troubling you?” And she answered, “Truly I am a widow, for my husband is dead. ⁶And your servant had two sons, but the two of them fought in the field, and there was no one to save them from each other, so one struck the other and killed him. ⁷Now behold, the entire family has risen against your servant, and they have said, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, so that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and eliminate the heir as well.’ So they will extinguish my coal which is left, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

⁸Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your home, and I will issue orders concerning you.” ⁹The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord, the king, the guilt is on me and my father’s house, but the king and his throne are guiltless.” ¹⁰So the king said, “Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore.” ¹¹Then she said, “May the king please remember the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to destroy, otherwise they will destroy my son.” And he said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”