# 1 Samuel 25

> Lumin Translation

Source: https://www.lumin.faith/read/1-samuel/25

Lumin’s own translation, drafted with AI from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, checked verse by verse against them, and approved by Lumin. Brackets mark verses not found in the earliest manuscripts.

How it was made: https://www.lumin.faith/lumin-translation.md

1. Samuel 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.
2. There 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.
3. The 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.
4. While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
5. So 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.
6. Say this to him: ‘Long life to you! Peace to you, peace to your household, and peace to all that you have!
7. I 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.
8. Ask 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.’”
9. When David’s young men arrived, they said all this to Nabal in David’s name, and they waited.
10. But 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.
11. Should 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?”
12. So David’s young men turned around and went back. When they arrived, they reported all these words to him.
13. David 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.
14. But 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.
15. Yet 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.
16. They were a wall around us night and day the whole time we were with them tending the sheep.
17. Now 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.”
18. Abigail 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.
19. She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me; I will come right after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20. As 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.
21. Now 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.
22. May 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.”
23. When Abigail saw David, she quickly got down from her donkey and fell on her face before David, bowing to the ground.
24. She 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.
25. Please, 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.
26. Now, 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.
27. Now let this gift that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.
28. Please 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.
29. If 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.
30. When Yahweh has done for my lord all the good he has promised you and has appointed you ruler over Israel,
31. my 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.”
32. David said to Abigail, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me!
33. Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, for keeping me today from bloodguilt and from taking revenge with my own hand.
34. Otherwise, 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.”
35. Then 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.”
36. When 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.
37. In 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.
38. About ten days later Yahweh struck Nabal, and he died.
39. When 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.
40. David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to be his wife.”
41. She 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.”
42. Abigail 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.
43. David had also taken Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives.
44. But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

## Nearby chapters

[1 Samuel 24](https://www.lumin.faith/read/1-samuel/24.md)
[1 Samuel 26](https://www.lumin.faith/read/1-samuel/26.md)

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