You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.
And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water.
Now all the Moabites had heard that the kings had come to fight against them; so every man, young and old, who could bear arms was called up and stationed on the border.
When they got up early in the morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites across the way, the water looked red—like blood.
“That’s blood!” they said. “Those kings must have fought and slaughtered each other. Now to the plunder, Moab!”
But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and fought them until they fled. And the Israelites invaded the land and slaughtered the Moabites.
They destroyed the towns, and each man threw a stone on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up all the springs and cut down every good tree. Only Kir Hareseth was left with its stones in place, but men armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it.
When the king of Moab saw that the battle had gone against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they failed.
Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.
He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;
When Abner, who had twenty men with him, came to David at Hebron, David prepared a feast for him and his men.
So Joab went to the king and said, “What have you done? Look, Abner came to you. Why did you let him go? Now he is gone!
You know Abner son of Ner; he came to deceive you and observe your movements and find out everything you are doing.”
Joab then left David and sent messengers after Abner, and they brought him back from the cistern at Sirah. But David did not know it.
Then Abner said to David, “Let me go at once and assemble all Israel for my lord the king, so that they may make a covenant with you, and that you may rule over all that your heart desires.” So David sent Abner away, and he went in peace.
Just then David’s men and Joab returned from a raid and brought with them a great deal of plunder. But Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, because David had sent him away, and he had gone in peace.
When Joab and all the soldiers with him arrived, he was told that Abner son of Ner had come to the king and that the king had sent him away and that he had gone in peace.
Now when Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into an inner chamber, as if to speak with him privately. And there, to avenge the blood of his brother Asahel, Joab stabbed him in the stomach, and he died.
Later, when David heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner.
May his blood fall on the head of Joab and on his whole family! May Joab’s family never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food.”
He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , but not as his father and mother had done. He got rid of the sacred stone of Baal that his father had made.