1 Samuel 25

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

2There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very wealthy; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and 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, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings. He was a Calebite.

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

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

6Say this to him: ‘Long life to you! Peace to you, peace to your household, and peace to all that you have!

7I hear that you have shearers. Now, your shepherds were with us, and we did not mistreat them. Nothing of theirs went missing the whole time they were in Carmel.

8Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on a festive day. Please give whatever you can spare to your servants and to your son David.’”

9When David’s young men arrived, they said all this to Nabal in David’s name, and they waited.

10But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days breaking away from their masters.

11Should I take my bread and my water and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers and give it to men who come from who knows where?”

12So David’s young men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported all these words to him.

13David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” So every 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, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them.

15Yet the men were very good to us. We were not mistreated, and nothing of ours went missing the whole time we went around with them when we were out in the fields.

16They were a wall around us night and day the whole time we were with them tending the sheep.

17Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is decided against our master and his whole household. He is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him.”

18Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep ready to cook, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

19She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me; I will come right after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

20As she was riding her donkey down under cover of the mountain, there were David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them.

21Now David had said, “It was all for nothing that I guarded everything this fellow had in the wilderness, so that nothing of all he owned went missing. He has paid me back evil for good.

22May God deal with David’s enemies severely, and more so, if by morning I leave a single male alive of all who belong to him.”

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

24She fell at his feet and said, “My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you, and listen to what your servant has to say.

25Please, my lord, pay no attention to this worthless man, Nabal. He is just like his name: his name means Fool, and folly goes with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men my lord sent.

26Now, my lord, as surely as Yahweh lives and as you live, since Yahweh has kept you from coming into bloodguilt and from taking revenge with your own hand, now may your enemies and those who seek to harm my lord be like Nabal.

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

28Please forgive your servant’s offense, for Yahweh will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my lord, because my lord is fighting Yahweh’s battles, and no evil will be found in you as long as you live.

29If anyone rises up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living with Yahweh your God. But the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.

30When Yahweh has done for my lord all the good he has promised you and has appointed you ruler over Israel,

31my lord will not have this as a stumbling block or a burden on his conscience, that he shed blood for no reason or took revenge for himself. And when Yahweh has dealt well with my lord, remember your servant.”

32David said to Abigail, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me!

33Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, for keeping me today from bloodguilt and from taking revenge with my own hand.

34Otherwise, as surely as Yahweh the God of Israel lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not hurried to come and meet me, not a single male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”

35Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, “Go home in peace. See, I have listened to you and granted your request.”

36When Abigail came back to Nabal, he was holding a feast in his house like a king’s feast. Nabal was in high spirits and very drunk, so she told him nothing at all until daybreak.

37In the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things, and his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.

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

39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has upheld my cause against Nabal for the insult he gave me and has kept his servant from doing evil. Yahweh has brought Nabal’s evil back on his own head.” Then David sent word to Abigail, asking her to become his wife.

40David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to be his wife.”

41She got up and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Here is your servant, ready to be a slave girl who washes the feet of my lord’s servants.”

42Abigail quickly got up and rode off on her donkey, with her five young women attending her. She went with David’s messengers and became his wife.

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

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