1 Samuel 19

Tree of Life Version

Saul Tries to Kill David

19 Now Saul told his son Jonathan and all his courtiers to kill David. But Saul’s son Jonathan delighted much in David. ² So Jonathan informed David saying, “My father Saul is seeking to kill you. So now, please be on guard in the morning, and stay in a secret place and hide yourself. ³ I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you will be, and I will speak with my father about you. If I notice anything, I will tell you.” ⁴ So Jonathan spoke well of David to his father Saul and said to him, “May the king not sin against his servant David, since he has not sinned against you, and since his deeds have been very beneficial for you; ⁵ For he put his life in his hand and killed the Philistine, and Adonai won a great victory for all Israel—you saw it and rejoiced. So why would you sin against innocent blood by killing David without a cause?”

⁶ Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, “As Adonai lives, he will not be put to death.” ⁷ So Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these things. Jonathan brought David to Saul and in his presence as before.

⁸ Once again war broke out, and David marched out and fought the Philistines, and inflicted a great slaughter on them and they fled before him. ⁹ Yet once again an evil spirit from Adonai came upon Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, as David was playing music with his hand. ¹⁰ Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul’s face, so that he drove the spear into the wall. That night David fled and got away.

¹¹ Then Saul sent agents to David’s house to watch him, in order to kill him in the morning. But David’s wife Michal warned him saying, “If you don’t escape for your life tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!” ¹² So Michal lowered David down through the window, and thus he went, fled and escaped. ¹³ Then Michal took a household idol, laid it in the bed, put a quilt of goats’ hair at the head and covered it with a cloth. ¹⁴ When Saul sent messengers to arrest David, she said, “He’s sick.”

¹⁵ So Saul sent the agents back to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed so I may put him to death.” ¹⁶ When the messengers came in, behold, the household idol was in the bed with the quilt of goats’ hair at its head. ¹⁷ Saul then said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this and let my enemy get away, so that he escaped?”

Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go or I’ll kill you!’”

¹⁸ So David fled and escaped, went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went and stayed at Naioth. ¹⁹ Saul was told, “Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah.” ²⁰ So Saul sent agents to seize David, but they saw a band of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing and presiding over them. Then the Ruach of God came upon Saul’s agents and they too prophesied. ²¹ When Saul was told, he sent other agents and they too prophesied. Then Saul sent a third group of messengers, and they too prophesied. ²² Then he himself went to Ramah, and when he arrived at the great cistern in Secu, he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?”

Someone answered, “Look, they are at Naioth at Ramah.” ²³ So he proceeded there, to Naioth at Ramah, and the Ruach of God came upon him as well, and he prophesied as he kept walking until he arrived to Naioth at Ramah. ²⁴ Then he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. That is why people were saying, “Is Saul too among the prophets?”