When you enter the town, you can find him before he goes up to the high place to eat. The people won’t eat until he arrives, for he must bless the sacrifice. Once that happens, those who have been invited will eat. Now go on up, for ¹  this is the time when you can find him!”

(Now the servant did not understand any of this. Only Jonathan and David knew what was going on.) ¹ 

Then the king said to the messengers ¹  who were stationed beside him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, for they too have sided ²  with David! They knew he was fleeing, but they did not inform me.” But the king’s servants refused to harm ³  the priests of the Lord.

Saul replied, “May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have had compassion on me.

Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time ¹  that he lived in the country of the Philistines.

After some time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, thinking, “I asked the Lord for him. ¹ 

Isn’t this David, of whom they sang as they danced, ¹  ‘Saul has struck down his thousands, but David his tens of thousands’?”

But the servant said to him, “Look, there is a man of God in this town. He is highly respected. Everything that he says really happens. ¹  Now let’s go there. Perhaps he will tell us where we should go from here.” ² 

When everyone who had known him previously saw him prophesying with the prophets, the people all asked one another, “What on earth has happened to the son of Kish? Does even Saul belong with the prophets?”

So on the day of the battle no sword or spear was to be found in the hand of anyone in the army that was with Saul and Jonathan. No one but Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

The Hebrews who had earlier gone over to the Philistine side ¹  joined the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.

So Jonathan spoke on David’s behalf ¹  to his father Saul. He said to him, “The king should not sin against his servant David, for he has not sinned against you. On the contrary, his actions have been very beneficial ²  for you.

So David and Abishai approached the army at night and found Saul lying asleep in the entrenchment with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the army were lying all around him.

In those days the Philistines gathered their troops ¹  for war in order to fight Israel. Achish said to David, “You should fully understand that you and your men must go with me into the battle.” ² 

This ought not to be, ¹  my sons! For the report that I hear circulating among the Lord’s people is not good.

So the Lord delivered Israel that day, and the battle shifted over to Beth Aven. ¹ 

When Samuel turned to leave, Saul ¹  grabbed the edge of his robe and it tore.

David said to Saul, “Don’t let anyone be discouraged. ¹  Your servant will go and fight this Philistine!”

Saul removed David ¹  from his presence and made him a commanding officer. ²  David led the army out to battle and back. ³ 

Then Saul told his son Jonathan and all his servants to kill David. But Saul’s son Jonathan liked David very much. ¹