Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

In humility and sorrow, David went out of the gate of
Jerusalem. The people followed in a long, sad procession, like a
funeral train. David's bodyguard of Cherethites, Pelethites, and
Gittites, under the command of Ittai, accompanied the king. But
with characteristic unselfishness, David could not consent to involve
these strangers in his calamity. Then the king said to Ittai, "Why are
you also going with us? ... You are a foreigner and also an exile. ...
In fact, you came only yesterday. Should I make you wander up and
down with us today, since I go I know not where? Return, and take
your brethren back. Mercy and truth be with you."
Ittai answered, "As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king
lives, surely in whatever place my lord the king shall be, whether in
death or life, even there also your servant will be." These men had
been converted from paganism, and they now nobly proved their
loyalty to God and their king. David accepted their devotion to his
apparently losing cause, and they all passed over the Kidron brook,
toward the wilderness.
Some Are Loyal to David in the Crisis
Again the procession stopped. "There was Zadok also, and all
the Levites with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God." To
the people with David, the presence of that sacred symbol was a
pledge of deliverance and victory. Its absence from Jerusalem would
bring terror to Absalom's followers.
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