1st Kings 2:19-31

¹⁹Therefore Bathsheba came to king Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah; and the king rose against the coming of her, and worshipped her, and sat on his throne; and a throne was set to the mother of the king, and she sat at his right side.

²⁰And she said to him, I pray of thee one little asking; shame thou not my face. And the king said to her, My mother, ask thou; for it is not leaveful that I turn away thy face.

²¹And she said, Abishag of Shunem be given wife to Adonijah, thy brother.

²²And king Solomon answered, and said to his mother, Why askest thou Abishag of Shunem to Adonijah? Ask thou to him also the realm; certainly he is mine elder brother, and he hath Abiathar, priest, and Joab, the son of Zeruiah.

²³Therefore king Solomon swore by the Lord, and said, God do to me these things, and add these things too, for Adonijah hath spoken this word against his life.

²⁴And now the Lord liveth, that hath confirmed me, and hath set me on the throne of David, my father, and that hath made to me an house, as he spake, for Adonijah shall be slain today.

²⁵And king Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada; and Benaiah slew Adonijah, and he was dead.

²⁶Also the king said to Abiathar, the priest, Go thou into Anathoth, to thy field; and soothly thou art a man of death, that is, worthy of death, for conspiring against me, and David, my father; but today I shall not slay thee, for thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David, my father, and thou sufferedest travail in all things, in which my father travailed.

²⁷Therefore Solomon putted out Abiathar, that he should not be priest of the Lord, that the word of the Lord were ful filled, which he spake on the house of Eli in Shiloh.

²⁸And a messenger came to Solo-mon, and said that Joab had bowed after Adonijah, and that he had not bowed after Solomon. Therefore Joab fled into the tabernacle of the Lord, and took the horn of the altar.

²⁹And it was told to king Solomon, that Joab had fled into the tabernacle of the Lord, and was beside the altar; and Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and said, Go thou, and slay him.

³⁰And Benaiah came to the taber-nacle of the Lord, and said to Joab, The king saith these things, Go thou out. And he said, I shall not go out, but I shall die here. Benaiah told the word to the king, and said, Joab spake these things, and answered these things to me.

³¹And the king said to Benaiah, Do thou as he hath spoken, and slay thou him, and bury him; and thou shalt remove the innocent blood, that was shed out of Joab, from me, and from the house of my father.