2 Samuel 17:1-14
Hushai Counters Ahithophel’s Advice

1 Moreover Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:

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2 And I will come upon him while he [is] weary and weak handed, and will make him afraid: and all the people that [are] with him shall flee; and I will smite the king only:

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3 And I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest [is] as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.

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4 And the saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel.

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5 Then said Absalom, Call now Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he saith.

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6 And when Hushai was come to Absalom, Absalom spake unto him, saying, Ahithophel hath spoken after this manner: shall we do [after] his saying? if not; speak thou.

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7 And Hushai said unto Absalom, The counsel that Ahithophel hath given [is] not good at this time.

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8 For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they [be] mighty men, and they [be] chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father [is] a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.

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9 Behold, he is hid now in some pit, or in some [other] place: and it will come to pass, when some of them be overthrown at the first, that whosoever heareth it will say, There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom.

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10 And he also [that is] valiant, whose heart [is] as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel knoweth that thy father [is] a mighty man, and [they] which [be] with him [are] valiant men.

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11 Therefore I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that [is] by the sea for multitude; and that thou go to battle in thine own person.

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12 So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground: and of him and of all the men that [are] with him there shall not be left so much as one.

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13 Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there be not one small stone found there.

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14 And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite [is] better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the LORD had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil upon Absalom.

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