I Samuel Chapter 25

I Samuel 25 — English translation

Translation: THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition. Verse numbers match the Hebrew text below.

1. 1Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and made lament for him; and they buried him in Ramah, his home. David went down to the wilderness of Paran.
2. 2There was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel. The man was very wealthy; he owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At the time, he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
3. 3The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man, a Calebite, was harsh and an evildoer.
4. 4David was in the wilderness when he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
5. 5David dispatched ten young men, and David instructed the young men, “Go up to Carmel. When you come to Nabal, greet him in my name.
6. 6Say as follows: ‘To life! Greetings to you and to your household and to all that is yours!
7. 7I hear that you are now doing your shearing. As you know, your shepherds have been with us; we did not harm them, and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel.
8. 8Ask your young men and they will tell you. So receive these young men graciously, for we have come on a festive occasion. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can.’”
9. 9David’s young men went and delivered this message to Nabal in the name of David. When they stopped speaking,
10. 10Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves nowadays who run away from their masters.
11. 11Should I then take my bread and my water, and the meat that I slaughtered for my own shearers, and give them to men who come from I don’t know where?”
12. 12Thereupon David’s young men retraced their steps; and when they got back, they told him all this.
13. 13And David said to his men, “Gird on your swords.” Each girded on his sword; David too girded on his sword. About four hundred of them went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.
14. 14One of [Nabal’s] young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, that David had sent messengers from the wilderness to greet their master, and that he had spurned them.
15. 15“But those involved had been very friendly to us; we were not harmed, nor did we miss anything all the time that we went about with them while we were in the open.
16. 16They were a wall about us both by night and by day all the time that we were with them tending the flocks.
17. 17So consider carefully what you should do, for harm threatens our master and all his household; he is such a nasty fellow that no one can speak to him.”
18. 18Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves of bread, two jars of wine, five dressed sheep, five seah s of parched corn, one hundred cakes of raisin, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs. She loaded them on donkeys,
19. 19and she told her young men, “Go on ahead of me, and I’ll follow you”; but she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20. 20She was riding on the donkey and going down a trail on the hill, when David and his men appeared, coming down toward her; and she met them.—
21. 21Now David had been saying, “It was all for nothing that I protected that fellow’s possessions in the wilderness, and that nothing he owned is missing. He has paid me back evil for good.
22. 22May God do thus and more to the enemies of David if, by the light of morning, I leave a single male of his.”—
23. 23When Abigail saw David, she quickly dismounted from the donkey and threw herself face down before David, bowing to the ground.
24. 24Prostrate at his feet, she pleaded, “Let the blame be mine, my lord, but let your handmaid speak to you; hear your maid’s plea.
25. 25Please, my lord, pay no attention to that wretched man—to Nabal. For he is just what his name says: His name means ‘boor’ and he is a boor. “Your handmaid did not see the young men whom my lord sent.
26. 26I swear, my lord, as G OD lives and as you live—G OD who has kept you from seeking redress by blood with your own hands—let your enemies and all who would harm my lord fare like Nabal!
27. 27Here is the present that your maidservant has brought to my lord; let it be given to the young men who are the followers of my lord.
28. 28Please pardon your maid’s boldness. For G OD will grant my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting G OD ’s battles and no wrong is ever to be found in you.
29. 29And if anyone sets out to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound up in the bundle of life in the care of G OD —who will fling away the lives of your enemies as from the hollow of a sling.
30. 30And when G OD has accomplished for my lord all the good promised to you, and has appointed you ruler of Israel,
31. 31do not let this be a cause of stumbling and of faltering courage to my lord that you have shed blood needlessly and that my lord sought redress with his own hands. And when G OD has made my lord prosper, remember your maid.”
32. 32David said to Abigail, “Praised be G OD , the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!
33. 33And blessed be your prudence, and blessed be you yourself for restraining me from seeking redress in blood by my own hands.
34. 34For as sure as G OD , the God of Israel, lives—who has kept me from harming you—had you not come quickly to meet me, not a single male of Nabal’s line would have been left by daybreak.”
35. 35David then accepted from her what she had brought him, and he said to her, “Go up to your home safely. See, I have heeded your plea and respected your wish.”
36. 36When Abigail came home to Nabal, he was having a feast in his house, a feast fit for a king; Nabal was in a merry mood and very drunk, so she did not tell him anything at all until daybreak.
37. 37The next morning, when Nabal had slept off the wine, his wife told him everything that had happened; and his courage died within him, and he became like a stone.
38. 38About ten days later G OD struck Nabal and he died.
39. 39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praised be G OD who championed my cause against the insults of Nabal and held me back from wrongdoing; G OD has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.” David sent messengers to propose marriage to Abigail, to take her as his wife.
40. 40When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and told her that David had sent them to her to make her his wife,
41. 41she immediately bowed low with her face to the ground and said, “Your handmaid is ready to be your maidservant, to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.”
42. 42Then Abigail rose quickly and mounted a donkey, and with five of her maids in attendance she followed David’s messengers; and she became his wife.
43. 43Now David had taken Ahinoam of Jezreel; so both of them became his wives.
44. 44Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish from Gallim.

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