but you can help me by returning to the city and telling Absalom that you will now serve him as faithfully as you served his father. And do all you can to oppose any advice that Ahithophel gives.

They answered, "The Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they give birth easily, and their babies are born before either of us gets there."

"Some men did come to my house," she answered, "but I don't know where they were from. They left at sundown before the city gate was closed. I didn't find out where they were going, but if you start after them quickly, you can catch them." (Now Rahab had taken the two spies up on the roof and hidden them under some stalks of flax that she had put there.)

(SEE 2:4)

When Saul's men came to get David, Michal told them that he was sick.

They went inside and found the household idol in the bed and the goats' hair pillow at its head.

"I am here on the king's business," David answered. "He told me not to let anyone know what he sent me to do. As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.

David would kill everyone, men and women, so that no one could go back to Gath and report what he and his men had really done. This is what David did the whole time he lived in Philistia.

But Achish trusted David and said to himself, "He is hated so much by his own people the Israelites that he will have to serve me all his life."

The spies went into the hills and hid. The king's men looked for them all over the countryside for three days, but they did not find them, so they returned to Jericho.

Then the two spies came down from the hills, crossed the river, and went back to Joshua. They told him everything that had happened,