1 Samuel 25

1Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and mourned for him, and they buried him at his house in Ramah. Then David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

2There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very wealthy, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

3The man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings; he was a Calebite.

4David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.

5So David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name with peace.”

6And say this: ‘To the living one: Peace to you, peace to your house, and peace to all that is yours.’

7And now I have heard that you have shearers. Now your shepherds, who were with us, we did not mistreat, and nothing of theirs was missing all the days they were in Carmel.

8Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let the young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day. Please give whatever your hand finds to your servants and to your son David.

9When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal all these words in David’s name, and then they rested.

10Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? These days many servants are breaking away, each man from before his master.”

11Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whom I do not know where they are from?

12So David’s young men turned back on their way, and they returned and came and told him all these words.

13Then David said to his men, “Each man strap on his sword.” So each man strapped on his sword, and David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies.

14But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he shouted at them.”

15Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not mistreated, nor did we miss anything all the days we went about with them while we were in the field.

16They were a wall around us both by night and by day, all the days we were with them tending the flock.

17Now know this and consider what you should do, for disaster has been determined against our master and against all his household, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.

18Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already prepared, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and put them on the donkeys.

19She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me. Look, I am coming behind you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

20And as she was riding on the donkey and going down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men were coming down to meet her, and she met them.

21David had said, “Surely I have guarded all that belongs to this man in the wilderness for nothing, so that not a thing of all that belonged to him was missing; and he has repaid me evil for good.”

22May God do so to David’s enemies, and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.

23When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey, and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground.

24She fell at his feet and said, “On me, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your hearing, and hear the words of your servant.”

25Please, my lord, do not set your heart on this worthless man, on Nabal, for as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.

26, my lord, as Yahweh lives and as you yourself live, since Yahweh has kept you from bloodguilt and from saving yourself by your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek evil against my lord be like Nabal.

27And now, let this gift that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.

28Please forgive the transgression of your servant, for Yahweh will surely make my lord a lasting house, because my lord fights Yahweh’s battles, and evil will not be found in you all your days.

29Though a man has risen to pursue you and to seek your life, yet the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with Yahweh your God, and the lives of your enemies he shall sling out from the hollow of the sling.

30And when Yahweh has done for my lord according to all the good that he spoke concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel,

31And this will not be a cause of grief to you or a stumbling block of heart to my lord: either that you have shed blood without cause or that my lord has avenged himself. And when Yahweh has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.

32David said to Abigail, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me.”

33And blessed be your judgment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from coming into bloodshed and from saving myself by my own hand.

34But as Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not hurried and come to meet me, surely by the light of morning not one male would have been left to Nabal.

35So David took from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have listened to your voice and accepted you.”

36When Abigail came to Nabal, behold, he was holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king, and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, and he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all, small or great, until the light of morning.

37And in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.

38And about ten days later, Yahweh struck Nabal, and he died.

39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has pleaded the case of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept his servant back from evil. Yahweh has returned Nabal’s evil on his own head.” Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife.

40So David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and spoke to her, saying, “David has sent us to you to take you for himself as a wife.”

41She rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your servant is a maidservant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”

42Abigail quickly got up and rode on the donkey, with five of her young women going after her; she went after David's messengers and became his wife.

43David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives.

44Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.