1 Samuel 25

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

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

³The name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife was Abigail. The woman was of good understanding and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and bad in his deeds; he was a Calebite.

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

⁵And 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 a greeting of peace.'

⁶And you shall say thus: 'Long life! And you — peace, and your house — peace, and all that is yours — peace.'

⁷Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds have been with us; we did not harm them, and nothing was missing of theirs, all the days they were at Carmel.

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

⁹And David's young men came and spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David's name, and then they waited.

¹⁰And Nabal answered David's servants and said, 'Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? Today there are many servants who break away from their masters.'

¹¹Shall 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 come from?

¹²And David's young men turned and went back, and they came and told David all these words.

¹³And David said to his men, 'Each of you gird on his sword.' So each man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, and two hundred stayed with the baggage.

¹⁴And one of the young men reported to Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, 'Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our lord, and he flew at them.'

¹⁵The men were very good to us, and we were not shamed, nor did we miss anything all the days we accompanied them when we were in the field.

¹⁶They were a wall around us both night and day, all the days we were with them while shepherding the sheep.

¹⁷Now therefore consider and see what you should do, for disaster is determined against our lord and against all his house; he is a worthless scoundrel, so that no one can speak to him.

¹⁸And Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep that were prepared, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred fig cakes, and she loaded them on donkeys.

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

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

²¹Now David had said, 'Surely for nothing I have kept all that this man had in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing from everything that belonged to him, and he has returned bad to me in exchange for good.'

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

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

²⁴And she fell at his feet and said, 'Upon me, my lord, let the iniquity be! And please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maidservant.'

²⁵Let not my lord regard this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so he is — Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I, your maidservant, did not see the servants of my lord whom you sent.

²⁶Now, my lord, as the LORD lives and as your soul lives, it is the LORD who has restrained you from coming into bloodshed and from saving yourself by your own hand. And now, may your enemies and those who seek harm against my lord be like Nabal.

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

²⁸Forgive, please, the transgression of your maidservant, for the LORD will certainly make for my lord a lasting house, for my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil will not be found in you all your days.

²⁹Should anyone rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound up in the bundle of the living with the LORD your God. But the lives of your enemies he will sling out from the hollow of a sling.

³⁰And it will come to pass, when the LORD does for my lord all the good he has spoken concerning you, and appoints you as ruler over Israel,

³¹This will not be a cause of staggering or a stumbling block of heart to my lord, either for shedding blood without cause or for my lord saving himself. And when the LORD deals well with my lord, remember your maidservant.

³²And David said to Abigail, 'Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!'

³³Blessed is your discernment, and blessed are you, who have this day restrained me from coming into bloodshed and from saving myself by my own hand.

³⁴But as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from harming you, for truly had you not hastened and come to meet me, not one male would have remained for Nabal by morning light.

³⁵And David received 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 I have accepted you.'

³⁶And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he had a feast in his house, like the feast of a king, and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all, either small or great, until morning light.

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

³⁸And it came to pass, about ten days later, that the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹And David heard that Nabal was dead, and he said, 'Blessed be the LORD, who has pleaded the case of my insult from the hand of Nabal, and has kept his servant back from evil, and the evil of Nabal the LORD has returned upon his own head.' And David sent and spoke with Abigail, to take her as his wife.

⁴⁰And the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel and spoke to her, saying, "David has sent us to you to take you to him as wife."

⁴¹And she arose and bowed with her face to the ground, and said, 'Behold, your maidservant is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.'

⁴²And Abigail hastened and arose, and rode upon the donkey, with her five maidens who walked after her on foot, and she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife.

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

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