The Death of Samuel
1Samuel died, and all Israel gathered to mourn for him, and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.
David, Nabal, and Abigail
2There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. He was very wealthy, with 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. She was a woman of good sense and beautiful appearance, 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 said to them, “Go up to Carmel, and when you reach Nabal, greet him in my name. 6Say to him, ‘Long life to you! Peace to you, peace to your household, and peace to all that you have. 7Now I hear that you are shearing. Your shepherds have been with us, and we did not mistreat them, and nothing of theirs was missing the whole time they were in Carmel. 8Ask your young men and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor in your eyes, 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 then they waited. 10But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? These days there are many servants 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 I don’t even know where they come from?” 12David’s young men turned around and went back, and told him all this. 13Then David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword.” So every man strapped on his sword, and David strapped on his own sword too. About four hundred men went up with David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies. 14Meanwhile, one of the servants told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. 15Yet these men were very good to us. We were not mistreated, and nothing was missing the whole time we went about with them in the field. 16They were a wall around us, night and day, the whole time we were with them tending the sheep. 17Now then, think it over and decide what to do, for disaster is coming on our master and his whole household. He is such a worthless man that no one can even talk to him.” 18Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred bunches 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 am right behind you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20As she was riding her donkey down a hidden mountain path, David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them. 21David had said, “Surely it was all for nothing that I protected everything this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing of his was missing — and he has repaid me evil for good. 22May God do the same to David’s enemies, and even more, if by morning I leave alive so much as one male of all who belong to him.”
Abigail Intercedes for Her Household
23When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and fell facedown before David, bowing to the ground. 24Falling at his feet, she said, “My lord, let the blame be mine alone. Please let your servant speak to you — 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 then, my lord, as surely as Yahweh lives and as you yourself live — since Yahweh has kept you from coming into bloodguilt and from avenging yourself with your own hand — may your enemies and all who intend harm against my lord become like Nabal. 27And now let this gift your servant has brought my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28Please forgive your servant’s offense, for Yahweh will surely make my lord a lasting house, because my lord fights the battles of Yahweh, and no wrong will ever be found in you. 29If anyone rises up to pursue you and seek your life, may the life of my lord be bound securely in the bundle of the living with Yahweh your God, while the lives of your enemies he will fling away as from the pocket of a sling. 30And when Yahweh has done for my lord all the good he has promised you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, 31this will not be a burden or a troubled conscience to my lord — that you shed blood without cause, or took vengeance yourself. 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 to meet me today. 33Blessed be your good judgment, and blessed are you, for keeping me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand. 34For as surely as Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives — who has kept me from harming you — if you had not hurried and come to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by morning.” 35Then David accepted from her hand what she had brought him, and said to her, “Go home in peace. See, I have listened to you and granted your request.” 36Abigail went to Nabal, and there he was, holding a feast in his house fit for a king. Nabal was in high spirits and very drunk, so she told him nothing at all until daybreak. 37In the morning, when the wine had left Nabal, his wife told him everything, and his heart failed within him, and he became like stone. 38About ten days later, Yahweh struck Nabal, and he died.
David Marries Abigail
39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has upheld my cause against the insult from Nabal and has kept his servant from doing wrong. Yahweh has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing back on his own head.” Then David sent word to Abigail, proposing to take her as his wife. 40David’s servants went to Abigail at Carmel and said to her, “David has sent us to take you to him as his wife.” 41She got up, bowed facedown to the ground, and said, “Let your servant be a slave to wash the feet of my lord’s servants.” 42Abigail hurried and 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 married 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.
