¹³ The woman said, “Why then have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself,^(A) for the king has not brought back his banished son?^{(B) 14} Like water^(C) spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die.^(D) But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person^(E) does not remain banished from him.

¹⁵ “And now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; perhaps he will grant his servant’s request.