1 Samuel 25

¹ Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David arose 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 badly behaved. He was a Calebite.

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

⁵ David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, and when you come to Nabal, greet him in my name.

⁶ "Say this: 'Peace to you, peace to your house, and peace to all that is yours.

⁷ "I have heard that you have shearers. Now, your shepherds have been with us and we did not mistreat them, and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel.

⁸ "Ask your young men and they will tell you. Let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.'"

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

¹⁰ Nabal answered David's servants and said, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters.

¹¹ "Shall I take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers and give it to men who come from I don't know where?"

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

¹³ David said to his men, "Every man strap on his sword!" Every man strapped on his sword, and David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, and two hundred remained 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, and he screamed at them.

¹⁵ "Yet the men were very good to us. We were not mistreated, and we did not miss anything all the time we went about with them in the field.

¹⁶ "They were a wall around us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.

¹⁷ "Now know this and consider what you should do, for harm has been determined against our master and against all his house. He is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him."

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five prepared sheep, five measures of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

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

²⁰ As she rode on the donkey and came down hidden by the mountain, David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them.

²¹ Now David had said, "Surely in vain I guarded all that belongs to this fellow in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing from all that belongs to him. He has returned me evil for good.

²² "May God do so to the enemies of David and more also if by morning I leave alive a single male of all who belong to him."

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

²⁴ She fell at his feet and said, "On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.

²⁵ "Please, let not my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal. For as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.

²⁶ "Now, my lord, as the LORD lives and as your soul lives—since the LORD has restrained you from coming into bloodguilt and from saving yourself by your own hand—now let your enemies and those who seek harm against my lord be like Nabal.

²⁷ "And now, let this blessing that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.

²⁸ "Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a lasting house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil will not be found in you all your days.

²⁹ "If someone rises to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound 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.

³⁰ "When the LORD has done for my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel,

³¹ "this will not be a stumbling block to you or a troubled conscience for my lord—that you shed blood without cause or that my lord saved himself. When the LORD has dealt well with my lord, remember your servant."

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

³³ "Blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you yourself, who have kept me this day from coming into bloodguilt and from saving myself by my own hand.

³⁴ "For as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives—who has restrained me from harming you—if you had not hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning light not one male would have been left to Nabal."

³⁵ David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, "Go up in peace to your house. See, I have listened to your voice and granted your request."

³⁶ Abigail came to Nabal, and he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. She told him nothing at all until the morning light.

³⁷ In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things. His heart died within him, and he became like a stone.

³⁸ About ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal had died, he said, "Blessed be the LORD who has pleaded my cause against the disgrace I received from Nabal and has kept his servant from evil. The LORD has returned Nabal's evil on his own head." Then David sent and spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife.

⁴⁰ David's servants came to Abigail at Carmel and said to her, "David has sent us to you to take you as his wife."

⁴¹ She rose and bowed with her face to the ground and said, "Here is your servant, a slave to wash the feet of my lord's servants."

⁴² Abigail hurried and rose and rode on a donkey, with five of her young women attending her. She followed David's messengers and became his wife.

⁴³ David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and both of them became his wives.

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