When it was time to shut the city gate for the night, the men left. I don’t know where they were heading. Chase after them quickly, for you have time to catch them!”

Twelve thousand men and women died that day, including all the men of Ai.

He said to her, “Stand watch at the entrance to the tent. If anyone comes along and asks you, ‘Is there a man here?’ say ‘No.’”

He went up from there to Penuel and made the same request. The men of Penuel responded the same way the men of Succoth had.

The woman ran at once and told her husband, “Come quickly, the man who visited me the other day has appeared to me!”

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” He said, “Yes.”

When he looked up and saw the traveler in the town square, the old man said, “Where are you heading? Where do you come from?”

The Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, spoke up, “I and my concubine stopped in Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin to spend the night.

The men of Israel marched out to fight Benjamin; they arranged their battle lines against Gibeah.

That day twenty-five thousand sword-wielding Benjaminites fell in battle, all of them capable warriors.

Then the Israelites dispersed from there to their respective tribal and clan territories. Each went from there to his own property.

Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your eyes to fail and will cause you grief. All of those born to your family will die in the prime of life.

Be strong and act like men, you Philistines, or else you will wind up serving the Hebrews the way they have served you! Act like men and fight!”

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do as they say and install a king over them.” Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go back to his own city.”

Then someone from the army informed him, “Your father put the army under a strict oath saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food today!’ That is why the army is tired.”

So Saul took three thousand select men from all Israel and went to find David and his men in the region of the rocks of the mountain goats.

There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. This man was very wealthy; he owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At that time he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

The man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was both wise and beautiful, but the man was harsh and his deeds were evil. He was a Calebite.

David settled with Achish in Gath, along with his men and their families. David had with him his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelite and Abigail the Carmelite, Nabal’s widow.

David and four hundred men continued the pursuit, but two hundred men who were too exhausted to cross the Wadi Besor stayed there.