1 Kings 2:19-31

¹⁹Bathsheba therefore went to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose up to meet her and bowed himself to her, and sat down on his throne and caused a throne to be set for the king’s mother; and she sat on his right hand.

²⁰Then she said, “I ask one small petition of you; don’t deny me.” The king said to her, “Ask on, my mother, for I will not deny you.”

²¹She said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as wife.”

²²King Solomon answered his mother, “Why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my elder brother; even for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”

²³Then king Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, “God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not spoken this word against his own life.

²⁴Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on my father David’s throne, and who has made me a house as he promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death today.”

²⁵King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell on him, so that he died.

²⁶To Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are worthy of death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you bore the Lord GOD’s ark before David my father, and because you were afflicted in all in which my father was afflicted.”

²⁷So Solomon thrust Abiathar out from being priest to the LORD, that he might fulfill the LORD’s word which he spoke concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

²⁸This news came to Joab; for Joab had followed Adonijah, although he didn’t follow Absalom. Joab fled to the LORD’s Tent, and held onto the horns of the altar.

²⁹King Solomon was told, “Joab has fled to the LORD’s Tent; and behold, he is by the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, fall on him.”

³⁰Benaiah came to the LORD’s Tent, and said to him, “The king says, ‘Come out!’” He said, “No; but I will die here.” Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, “This is what Joab said, and this is how he answered me.”

³¹The king said to him, “Do as he has said, and fall on him, and bury him, that you may take away the blood, which Joab shed without cause, from me and from my father’s house.