1 Samuel 20:1–42
20 Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wrongedm your father, that he is trying to kill me?”n
2 “Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me? It isn’t so!”
3 But David took an oatho and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”
4 Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”
5 So David said, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon feast,p and I am supposed to dine with the king; but let me go and hideq in the field until the evening of the day after tomorrow. 6 If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David earnestly asked my permissionr to hurry to Bethlehem,s his hometown, because an annualt sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.’ 7 If he says, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper,u you can be sure that he is determinedv to harm me. 8 As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenantw with you before the Lord. If I am guilty, then killx me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?”
9 “Never!” Jonathan said. “If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn’t I tell you?”
10 David asked, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”
11 “Come,” Jonathan said, “let’s go out into the field.” So they went there together.
12 Then Jonathan said to David, “I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, that I will surely soundy out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know? 13 But if my father intends to harm you, may the Lord deal with Jonathan, be it ever so severely,z if I do not let you know and send you away in peace. May the Lord be witha you as he has been with my father. 14 But show me unfailing kindnessb like the Lord’s kindness as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my familyc—not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”
16 So Jonathand made a covenante with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.f” 17 And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oathg out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.
18 Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon feast. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty.h 19 The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hidi when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel. 20 I will shoot three arrowsj to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. 21 Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,’ then come, because, as surely as the Lord lives, you are safe; there is no danger. 22 But if I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are beyondk you,’ then you must go, because the Lord has sent you away. 23 And about the matter you and I discussed—remember, the Lord is witnessl between you and me forever.”
24 So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon feastm came, the king sat down to eat. 25 He sat in his customary place by the wall, opposite Jonathan,a and Abner sat next to Saul, but David’s place was empty.n 26 Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean—surely he is unclean.o” 27 But the next day, the second day of the month, David’s place was empty again. Then Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”
28 Jonathan answered, “David earnestly asked me for permissionp to go to Bethlehem. 29 He said, ‘Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrificeq in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away to see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”
30 Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? 31 As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdomr will be established. Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die!”
32 “Whys should he be put to death? Whatt has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. 33 But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intendedu to kill David.
34 Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the feast he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of
1 Samuel 21:1–15
21 a David went to Nob,c to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembledd when he met him, and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
2 David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”
4 But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary breade on hand; however, there is some consecratedf bread here—provided the men have keptg themselves from women.”
5 David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usualh wheneverb I set out. The men’s bodies are holyi even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the priest gave him the consecrated bread,j since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.
7 Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; he was Doegk the Edomite,l Saul’s chief shepherd.
8 David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
9 The priest replied, “The swordm of Goliathn the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah,o is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword here but that one.”
David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
10 That day David fled from Saul and wentp to Achish king of Gath. 11 But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances:
“ ‘Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands’?”q
12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13 So he pretended to be insaner in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.
14 Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? 15 Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”