How the warriors have fallen! The weapons of war are destroyed!

Your hands were not bound, and your feet were not put into irons. You fell the way one falls before criminals.” All the people wept over him again.

David said to Gad, “I am very upset! I prefer that we be attacked by the Lord, for his mercy is great; I do not want to be attacked by men!”

The beauty of Israel lies slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

I wipe them out and beat them to death; they cannot get up; they fall at my feet.

How the warriors have fallen in the midst of battle! Jonathan lies slain on your high places!

These four were the descendants of Rapha who lived in Gath; they were killed by David and his soldiers.

But Asahel refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the abdomen with the back end of his spear. The spear came out his back; Asahel collapsed on the spot and died there right before Abner. Everyone who now comes to the place where Asahel fell dead pauses in respect.

As they grappled with one another, each one stabbed his opponent with his sword and they fell dead together. So that place is called the Field of Flints; it is in Gibeon.

Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader has fallen this day in Israel?

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed low with his face toward the ground. David said, “Mephibosheth?” He replied, “Yes, at your service.”

When the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, some of David’s soldiers fell in battle. Uriah the Hittite also died.

So the Tekoan woman went to the king. She bowed down with her face to the ground in deference to him and said, “Please help me, O king!”

On the third day a man arrived from the camp of Saul with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. When he approached David, the man threw himself to the ground.

David inquired, “How were things going? Tell me!” He replied, “The people fled from the battle and many of them fell dead. Even Saul and his son Jonathan are dead!”

So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. Then I took the crown which was on his head and the bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.”

They lamented and wept and fasted until evening because Saul, his son Jonathan, the Lord’s people, and the house of Israel had fallen by the sword.

May his blood whirl over the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! May the males of Joab’s house never cease to have someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

Now Saul’s son Jonathan had a son who was crippled in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan arrived from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but in her haste to get away, he fell and was injured. Mephibosheth was his name.

She replied, “In that case, let the king invoke the name of the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.”