¹⁶ Then Joab^(A) sounded the trumpet, and the troops stopped pursuing Israel, for Joab halted them. ¹⁷ They took Absalom, threw him into a big pit in the forest and piled up^(B) a large heap of rocks^(C) over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled to their homes.

¹⁸ During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley^(D) as a monument^(E) to himself, for he thought, “I have no son^(F) to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.