This is how you will be tested: I swear by the name of the king that you will never leave unless your youngest brother comes here.

With that, he put them in prison for three days.

To prove that you are honest, one of you will stay in the prison where you have been kept; the rest of you may go and take back to your starving families the grain that you have bought.

Then you said, 'You will not be admitted to my presence again unless your youngest brother comes with you.'

I have seen the cruel suffering of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans, and I have come down to set them free. Come now; I will send you to Egypt.'

If you are not willing, we will not go, because the man told us we would not be admitted to his presence unless our brother was with us."

"Good!" David answered. "I will make an agreement with you on one condition: you must bring Saul's daughter Michal to me when you come to see me."

The king, however, gave orders that Absalom should not live in the palace. "I don't want to see him," the king said. So Absalom lived in his own house and did not appear before the king.

Absalom lived two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king.

Absalom answered, "Because you wouldn't come when I sent for you. I wanted you to go to the king and ask for me: 'Why did I leave Geshur and come here? It would have been better for me to have stayed there.' " And Absalom went on, "I want you to arrange for me to see the king, and if I'm guilty, then let him put me to death."

"I have gone about among all of you, preaching the Kingdom of God. And now I know that none of you will ever see me again.

They were especially sad because he had said that they would never see him again. And so they went with him to the ship.