1 Kings 2:20-37 Modern English Version (MEV)

20. Then she said, “I desire one small petition of you. Please do not deny me.”And the king said to her, “Ask, my mother, for I will not refuse you.”

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

22. King Solomon answered his mother, “Now why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also, for he is my elder brother. Ask not only for him, but also for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”

23. Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, saying, “May God do so to me and more also if this word does not cost Adonijah his life.

24. Now therefore as the Lord 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, Adonijah shall be put to death this day.”

25. So King Solomon dispatched Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he executed him.

26. The king said to Abiathar the priest, “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 ark of the Lord God before David my father and because you shared in all the hardships my father endured.”

27. So Solomon expelled Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord that He had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

28. Then word came to Joab, for Joab had followed Adonijah, though he did not support Absalom. And Joab fled to the tabernacle of the Lord and caught hold of the horns of the altar.

29. King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tabernacle of the Lord and was by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go and execute him.”

30. So Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the Lord and said to him, “Thus says the king, ‘Come forth.’ ”And he said, “No, I will die here.”And Benaiah told the king all Joab said.

31. The king said to him, “Do as he has said, strike him down and bury him, and thus take away from me and my father’s house the guilt for the blood Joab shed without cause.

32. The Lord shall return his blood upon his own head, for he attacked two men more righteous and better than he—Abner the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah—and killed them with the sword when my father David was unaware.

33. Therefore their blood shall return upon the head of Joab and upon the head of his seed forever, but upon David and upon his seed and upon his house and upon his throne shall the peace of the Lord rest forever.”

34. So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and attacked and killed him, and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.

35. The king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada over the army in place of Joab and put Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar.

36. The king sent and called for Shimei and said to him, “Build a house for yourself in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and never leave the city.

37. For on the day you go out and pass over the Kidron Valley, know for certain that you will surely die. Your blood shall be on your own head.”

1 Kings 2