¹³ The woman said, “Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself,^(A) for the king has not brought back his banished son?^(B)

¹⁴ Like water^(A) spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die.^(B) But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person^(C) does not remain banished from him.

²⁴ But the king said, “He must go to his own house; he must not see my face.” So Absalom went to his own house and did not see the face of the king.