^12 (A)And they neither found me in the temple disputing with anyone nor inciting the crowd, either in the synagogues or in the city. ¹³ Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me.

David and Mephibosheth Meet

²⁴ Now ^(A)Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king. And he had not cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace. ²⁵ So it was, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, ^(B)“Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?”

²⁶ And he answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go to the king,’ because your servant is lame. ²⁷ And ^(C)he has slandered your servant to my lord the king, ^(D)but my lord the king is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes.

Mephibosheth’s Servant

16 When^(A) David was a little past the top of the mountain, there was ^(B)Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth, who met him with a couple of saddled donkeys, and on them two hundred loaves of bread, one hundred clusters of raisins, one hundred summer fruits, and a skin of wine. ² And the king said to Ziba, “What do you mean to do with these?”

So Ziba said, “The donkeys are for the king’s household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for ^(C)those who are faint in the wilderness to drink.”

³ Then the king said, “And where is your ^(D)master’s son?”

^(E)And Ziba said to the king, “Indeed he is staying in Jerusalem, for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me.’ ”

^5 (A)For we have found this man a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. ^6 (B)He even tried to profane the temple, and we seized him, ^[a]and wanted ^(C)to judge him according to our law.