When Abner arrived in Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate, as though he wanted to speak privately with him, and there he stabbed him in the stomach. And so Abner was murdered because he had killed Joab's brother Asahel.

David invited him to supper and got him drunk. But again that night Uriah did not go home; instead he slept on his blanket in the palace guardroom.

He wrote: "Put Uriah in the front line, where the fighting is heaviest, then retreat and let him be killed."

Joab said to Amasa, "How are you, my friend?" and took hold of his beard with his right hand in order to kiss him.

His words were smoother than cream, but there was hatred in his heart; his words were as soothing as oil, but they cut like sharp swords.