3And the people say, `Thou dost not go out, for if we utterly flee, they do not set [their] heart upon us; and if half of us die, they do not set [their] heart unto us -- for now like us [are] ten thousand; and now, better that thou be to us from the city for an helper.`
4And the king saith unto them, `That which is good in your eyes I do;` and the king standeth at the side of the gate, and all the people have gone out by hundreds and by thousands,
5and the king chargeth Joab, and Abishai, and Ittai, saying, `Gently -- for me, for the youth, for Absalom;` and all the people heard in the king`s charging all the heads concerning Absalom.
6And the people goeth out into the field to meet Israel, and the battle is in a forest of Ephraim;
7and smitten there are the people of Israel before the servants of David, and the smiting there is great on that day -- twenty thousand;
8and the battle is there scattered over the face of all the land, and the forest multiplieth to devour among the people more than those whom the sword hath devoured in that day.
9And Absalom meeteth before the servants of David, and Absalom is riding on the mule, and the mule cometh in under an entangled bough of the great oak, and his head taketh hold on the oak, and he is placed between the heavens and the earth, and the mule that [is] under him hath passed on.
