Daily Text and Bible Reading: Friday, April 4 [Press play below]

25.1 In time Samuel died; and all Israel gathered together to mourn for him and to bury him at his house in Ramah. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
25.2 Now there was a man in Maon whose work was in Carmel. The man was very wealthy; he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats, and he was then shearing his sheep at Carmel.
25.3 The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. The wife was discerning and beautiful, but the husband, a Calebite, was harsh, and he behaved badly.
25.4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
25.5 So David sent ten young men to him, and David told the young men: “Go up to Carmel, and when you come to Nabal, ask him in my name about his welfare.
25.6 Then say, ‘May you live long and may you be well and may your household be well and may all that you have be well.
25.7 Now I hear that you are doing your shearing. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harm them, and they found nothing missing the whole time they were in Carmel.
25.8 Ask your young men, and they will tell you. May my young men find favor in your eyes, because we have come at a joyous time. Please give to your servants and to your son David whatever you can spare.’”
25.9 So David’s young men went and told all of this to Nabal in David’s name. When they finished,
25.10 Nabal answered David’s servants: “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? Nowadays many servants are breaking away from their masters.
25.11 Do I have to take my bread and my water and the meat that I butchered for my shearers and give it to men who come from who knows where?”
25.12 At that David’s young men returned and reported all these words to him.
25.13 David immediately said to his men: “Everyone strap on your sword!” So they all strapped on their swords, and David also strapped on his own sword, and about 400 men went up with David, while 200 men stayed with the baggage.
25.14 Meanwhile, one of the servants reported to Abigail, Nabal’s wife: “Look! David sent messengers from the wilderness to wish our master well, but he screamed insults at them.
25.15 Those men were very good to us. They never harmed us, and we did not miss a single thing the whole time we were together with them in the fields.
25.16 They were like a protective wall around us, both by night and by day, the whole time we were with them shepherding the flock.
25.17 Now decide what you are going to do, for disaster has been determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him.”
25.18 So Abigail quickly took 200 loaves of bread, two large jars of wine, five dressed sheep, five seah measures of roasted grain, 100 cakes of raisins, and 200 cakes of pressed figs and put all of it on the donkeys.
25.19 Then she said to her servants: “Go on ahead of me; I will follow you.” But she said nothing to her husband Nabal.
25.20 While she was riding on the donkey and going down under cover of the mountain, just then David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them.
25.21 Now David had been saying: “It was for nothing that I guarded everything that belongs to this fellow in the wilderness. Not a single thing belonging to him went missing, and yet he repays me evil for good.
25.22 May God do the same and more to the enemies of David if I allow a single male of his to survive until the morning.”
25.23 When Abigail caught sight of David, she hurried down off the donkey and threw herself facedown before David, bowing to the ground.
25.24 She then fell at his feet and said: “My lord, let the blame be on me; let your servant girl speak to you, and listen to the words of your servant girl.
25.25 Please, do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless Nabal, for he is just like his name. Nabal is his name, and senselessness is with him. But I, your servant girl, did not see my lord’s young men whom you sent.
25.26 And now, my lord, as surely as Jehovah is living and as you are living, it is Jehovah who has held you back from incurring bloodguilt and from taking revenge with your own hand. May your enemies and those seeking injury to my lord become like Nabal.
25.27 Now let this gift that your servant girl has brought to my lord be given to the young men who are following my lord.
25.28 Pardon, please, the transgression of your servant girl, for Jehovah will without fail make for my lord a lasting house, because my lord is fighting the wars of Jehovah, and no evil has been found in you all your days.
25.29 When someone rises up to pursue you and seeks your life, the life of my lord will be wrapped securely in the bag of life with Jehovah your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away like stones from a sling.
25.30 And when Jehovah has done for my lord all the good things he has promised and he appoints you as leader over Israel,
25.31 you will have no remorse or regret in your heart for shedding blood without cause and for letting the hand of my lord take revenge. When Jehovah confers good upon my lord, remember your servant girl.”
25.32 At this David said to Abigail: “Praise Jehovah the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me!
25.33 And blessed be your good sense! May you be blessed for restraining me this day from incurring bloodguilt and from taking revenge with my own hands.
25.34 Otherwise, as surely as Jehovah the God of Israel who held me back from harming you is living, if you had not come quickly to meet me, by morning there would not have remained a single male belonging to Nabal.”
25.35 With that David accepted from her what she had brought him and said to her: “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have listened to you, and I will grant your request.”
25.36 Abigail later went back to Nabal, who was feasting like a king in his house, and Nabal was in a good mood and was as drunk as could be. She did not tell him a single thing until the morning light.
25.37 In the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him these things. And his heart became like a dead man’s, and he lay paralyzed like a stone.
25.38 About ten days later, Jehovah struck Nabal, and he died.
25.39 When David heard that Nabal had died, he said: “Praise Jehovah, who has pleaded my case of reproach from Nabal and has kept his servant from doing anything bad, and Jehovah has brought the badness of Nabal back on his own head!” Then David sent word to propose to Abigail to take her as his wife.
25.40 So David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel and said to her: “David has sent us to you to take you as his wife.”
25.41 She immediately rose up and bowed with her face to the ground and said: “Here is your slave as a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”
25.42 Then Abigail quickly rose up and rode on her donkey with five of her female servants walking behind her; she accompanied the messengers of David and became his wife.
25.43 David had also married Ahinoam from Jezreel, and both women became his wives.
25.44 But Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

26.1 In time the men of Ziph came to Saul at Gibeah, saying: “Is David not hiding on the hill of Hachilah facing Jeshimon?”
26.2 So Saul rose up and went down to the wilderness of Ziph with 3,000 chosen men of Israel to look for David in the wilderness of Ziph.
26.3 Saul camped on the hill of Hachilah, which faces Jeshimon, by the road. David was then living in the wilderness, and he learned that Saul had come into the wilderness after him.
26.4 So David sent spies to verify that Saul had indeed come.
26.5 David later went to the place where Saul had encamped, and David saw the place where Saul and Abner the son of Ner, the chief of his army, were lying asleep; Saul lay asleep in the camp enclosure with the troops camping all around him.
26.6 Then David said to Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai the son of Zeruiah, the brother of Joab: “Who will go down with me into the camp to Saul?” Abishai replied: “I will go down with you.”
26.7 So David and Abishai made their way to the troops by night, and they found Saul lying asleep in the camp enclosure with his spear stuck into the ground next to his head; Abner and the troops were lying all around him.
26.8 Abishai now said to David: “Today God has surrendered your enemy into your hand. And now, please, let me pin him to the ground with the spear just once, and I will not need to do it twice.”
26.9 However, David said to Abishai: “Do not harm him, for who can lift his hand against the anointed of Jehovah and remain innocent?”
26.10 David continued: “As surely as Jehovah is living, Jehovah himself will strike him down, or his day will come and he will die, or he will go down into battle and perish.
26.11 It is unthinkable from Jehovah’s standpoint for me to lift my hand against the anointed of Jehovah! So now take, please, the spear next to his head and the water jug, and let us be on our way.”
26.12 So David took the spear and the water jug from next to Saul’s head, and they went away. No one saw or noticed them or woke up, for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from Jehovah had fallen upon them.
26.13 Then David crossed to the other side and stood on the top of the mountain some distance away, with a considerable space between them.
26.14 David called out to the troops and to Abner the son of Ner, saying: “Abner, will you not answer?” Abner answered: “Who are you who calls to the king?”
26.15 David said to Abner: “Are you not a man? And who is like you in Israel? So why did you not keep watch over your lord the king? For one of the soldiers came in to do away with your lord the king.
26.16 What you have done is not good. As surely as Jehovah is living, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the anointed of Jehovah. Now look around! Where are the king’s spear and the water jug that were next to his head?”
26.17 Then Saul recognized the voice of David and said: “Is this your voice, my son David?” David replied: “It is my voice, my lord the king.”
26.18 He added: “Why is my lord chasing after his servant, for what have I done, and what am I guilty of?
26.19 My lord the king, please, listen to the words of his servant: If it is Jehovah who incited you against me, let him accept my grain offering. But if men have incited you, they are cursed before Jehovah, because they have driven me away today from being united with Jehovah’s inheritance, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods!’
26.20 And now do not let my blood fall to the ground away from the presence of Jehovah, for the king of Israel has gone out to look for a single flea, as if he were chasing a partridge on the mountains.”
26.21 In turn Saul said: “I have sinned. Come back, my son David, for I will do you no more harm, because you regarded my life as precious this day. Yes, I have acted foolishly and have made a terrible mistake.”
26.22 David answered: “Here is the spear of the king. Let one of the young men come over and take it.
26.23 It is Jehovah who will repay each one for his own righteousness and his own faithfulness, for today Jehovah gave you into my hand, but I was unwilling to lift my hand against the anointed of Jehovah.
26.24 Look! Just as your life was precious to me this day, so may my life be precious in the eyes of Jehovah, and may he rescue me out of all distress.”
26.25 Saul replied to David: “May you be blessed, my son David. You will surely do great things, and you will surely prevail.” Then David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place.

27.1 However, David said in his heart: “One day I will perish by Saul’s hand. The best thing for me is to escape to the land of the Philistines; then Saul will give up looking for me in all the territory of Israel, and I will escape from his hand.”
27.2 So David rose up with the 600 men who were with him and went over to Achish the son of Maoch, the king of Gath.
27.3 David stayed with Achish in Gath, he and his men, each man with his household. With David were his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the Carmelite, Nabal’s widow.
27.4 When report was made to Saul that David had run away to Gath, he stopped searching for him.
27.5 Then David said to Achish: “If I have found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in one of the cities of the countryside, so that I may live there. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?”
27.6 So Achish gave him Ziklag on that day. That is why Ziklag belongs to the kings of Judah down to this day.
27.7 The length of time that David lived in the countryside of the Philistines was a year and four months.
27.8 David would go up with his men to raid the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for they were inhabiting the land that extended from Telam as far as Shur and down to the land of Egypt.
27.9 When David would attack the land, he preserved neither man nor woman alive, but he took the flocks, herds, donkeys, camels, and clothing, after which he would return to Achish.
27.10 Then Achish would ask: “Where did you make a raid today?” David would reply: “Against the south of Judah” or “Against the south of the Jerahmeelites” or “Against the south of the Kenites.”
27.11 David did not spare alive any man or woman to be brought to Gath, saying: “That they may not tell them about us and say, ‘This is what David did.’” (And that was his practice the whole time he lived in the countryside of the Philistines.)
27.12 So Achish believed David, saying to himself: ‘He has certainly become a stench among his people Israel, so he will always be my servant.’