²⁴ She fell at his feet and said, ^(A)“On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. ²⁵ Let not my lord regard ^(B)this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal^[a] is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. ²⁶ Now then, my lord, ^(C)as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because ^(D)the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from ^(E)saving with your own hand, now then ^(F)let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. ²⁷ And now let this ^(G)present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. ²⁸ Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the Lord will certainly make my lord ^(H)a sure house, because my lord ^(I)is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. ²⁹ If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. And the lives of your enemies ^(J)he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. ³⁰ And when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince^[b] over Israel, ³¹ my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord ^(K)working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

³² And David said to Abigail, ^(L)“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! ³³ Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, ^(M)who have kept me this day from bloodguilt ^(N)and from working salvation with my own hand! ³⁴ For as surely ^(O)as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, ^(P)who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male.” ³⁵ Then David received from her hand what she had brought him. And he said to her, ^(Q)“Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.”

³⁶ And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, ^(R)he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal's heart ^(S)was merry within him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing ^(T)at all until the morning light. ³⁷ In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. ³⁸ And about ten days later ^(U)the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, ^(V)“Blessed be the Lord who has ^(W)avenged the insult I received at the hand of Nabal, ^(X)and has kept back his servant from wrongdoing. ^(Y)The Lord has returned the evil of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent and ^(Z)spoke to Abigail, to take her as his wife. ⁴⁰ When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.” ⁴¹ And she rose ^(AA)and bowed with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” ⁴² And Abigail hurried and rose and mounted a donkey, and her five young women attended her. She followed the messengers of David and became his wife.

⁴³ David also took Ahinoam of ^(AB)Jezreel, ^(AC)and both of them became his wives. ⁴⁴ Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them.

⁴ instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now. ⁵ I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that ^(A)I may find favor in your sight.’”

⁶ And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and ^(B)he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” ⁷ Then Jacob was ^(C)greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, ⁸ thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.”

⁹ And Jacob said, ^(D)“O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who ^(E)said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ ^10 (F)I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. ¹¹ Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for ^(G)I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. ¹² But ^(H)you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

¹³ So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took ^(I)a present for his brother Esau, ¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, ¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. ¹⁶ These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.” ¹⁷ He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ ¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’” ¹⁹ He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, ²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him^[a] with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”^{[b] 21} So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.