First Kings 2:19-31

¹⁹Bathsheba therefore went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat down on his throne and had a throne brought for the king's mother. She sat at his right hand.

²⁰Then she said, “I wish to ask one small request of you, for you will not turn away from my face.” The king answered her, “Ask, my mother, for I will not turn away from your face.”

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

²²King Solomon answered and said to his mother, “Why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Why do you not ask the kingdom for him also, for he is my elder brother—for him, for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab son of Zeruiah?”

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

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

²⁵So King Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and Benaiah found Adonijah and put him to death.

²⁶Then to Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields. You are worthy of death, but I will not at this time put you to death, because you carried the ark of the Lord Yahweh before David my father and suffered in every way my father suffered.”

²⁷So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh, that he might fulfill the word of Yahweh, which he had spoken concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.

²⁸The news came to Joab, for Joab had supported Adonijah, though he had not supported Absalom. So Joab fled to the tent of Yahweh and took hold of the horns of the altar.

²⁹It was told King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tent of Yahweh and was now beside the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, execute him.”

³⁰So Benaiah came to the tent of Yahweh and said to him, “The king says, 'Come out.'” Joab replied, “No, I will die here.” So Benaiah returned to the king, saying, “Joab said he wanted to die at the altar.”

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