5David said to Jonathan, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and I b-am to sit with the king at the meal. Instead, let-b me go and I will hide in the countryside until the thirdc evening. 6If your father notes my absence, you say, ‘David asked my permission to run down to his home town, Bethlehem, for the whole family has its annual sacrifice there.’ 7If he says ‘Good,’ your servant is safe; but if his anger flares up, know that he is resolved to do [me] harm. 8Deal faithfully with your servant, since you have taken your servant into a covenant of the LORD with you. And if I am guilty, kill me yourself, but don’t make me go back to your father.” 9Jonathan replied, “Don’t talk like that! If I learn that my father has resolved to kill you, I will surely tell you about it.” 10David said to Jon-athan, “Who will tell me ifd your father answers you harshly?” 11Jonathan said to David, “Let us go into the open”; and they both went out into the open.
12eThen Jonathan said to David, “By the LORD, the God of Israel! I will sound out my father at this time tomorrow, [or] on the third day; and if [his response] is favorable for David, I will send a message to you at once and disclose it to you. 13But if my father intends to do you harm, may the LORD do thus to Jonathan and more if I do [not] disclose it to you and send you off to escape unharmed. May the LORD be with you, as He used to be with my father. 14Nor shall you fail to show me the f-LORD’s faithfulness,-f while I am alive; nor, when I am dead, 15shall you ever discontinue your faithfulness to my house—not even after the LORD has wiped out every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth. 16Thus has Jonathan covenanted with the house of David; and may the LORD requite the enemies of David!”
17Jonathan, out of his love for David, adjuredg him again, for he loved him as himself. 18Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow will be the new moon; and you will be missed when your seat remains vacant.h 19So the day after tomorrow, go down i-all the way-i to the place where you hid j-the other time,-j and stay close to the Ezel stone. 20Now I will shoot three arrows to one side of it, as though I were shooting at a mark, 21and I will order the boy to go and find the arrows. If I call to the boy, ‘Hey! the arrows are on this side of you,’ be reassuredk and come, for you are safe and there is no danger—as the LORD lives! 22But if, instead, I call to the lad, ‘Hey! the arrows are beyond you,’ then leave, for the LORD has sent you away. 23As for the promise we made to each other,l may the LORD be [witness] between you and me forever.”
24David hid in the field. The new moon came, and the king sat down to partake of the meal. 25When the king took his usual place on the seat by the wall, Jonathan rosem and Abner sat down at Saul’s side; but David’s place remained vacant. 26That day, however, Saul said nothing. “It’s accidental,” he thought. n-“He must be unclean and not yet cleansed.”-n 27But on the day after the new moon, the second day, David’s place was vacant again. So Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why didn’t the son of Jesseo come to the meal yesterday or today?” 28Jonathan answered Saul, “David begged leave of me to go to Bethlehem. 29He said, ‘Please let me go, for we are going to have a family feast in our town and my brother has summoned me to it. Do me a favor, let me slip away to see my kinsmen.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”
30Saul flew into a rage against Jonathan. “You son of a perverse, re-bellious woman!” he shouted. “I know that you side with the son of Jesse—to your shame, and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness! 31For as long as the son of Jesse lives on earth, neither you nor your kingship will be secure. Now then, have him brought to me, for he is marked for death.” 32But Jonathan spoke up and said to his father, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” 33At that, Saul threwp his spear at him to strike him down; and Jonathan realized that his father was deter-mined to do away with David. 34Jonathan rose from the table in a rage. He ate no food on the second day of the new moon, because he was grieved about David, and because his father had humiliated him.
35In the morning, Jonathan went out into the open for the meeting with David, accompanied by a young boy. 36He said to the boy, “Run ahead and find the arrows that I shoot.” And as the boy ran, he shot the arrows past him. 37When the boy came to the place where the arrows shot by Jonathan had fallen, Jonathan called out to the boy, “Hey, the arrows are beyond you!” 38And Jonathan called after the boy, “Quick, hurry up. Don’t stop!” So Jonathan’s boy gathered the arrows and came back to his master.—39The boy suspected nothing; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement.—40Jonathan handed the gear to his boy and told him, “Take these back to the town.” 41When the boy got there, David q-emerged from his concealment at-q the Negeb.r He flung himself face down on the ground and bowed low three times. They kissed each other and wept together; David wept the longer.
21 42Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace! For we two have sworn to each other in the name of the LORD: ‘May the LORD be [witness] between you and me, and between your offspring and mine, forever!’ ” 1David then went his way, and Jonathan returned to the town.
2David went to the priest Ahimelech at Nob. Ahimelech came out in alarm to meet David, and he said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” 3David answered the priest Ahimelech, “The king has ordered me on a mission, and he said to me, ‘No one must know anything about the mission on which I am sending you and for which I have given you orders.’ So I have a-directed [my] young men to-a such and such a place. 4Now then, what have you got on hand? Anyb loaves of bread? Let me have them—or whatever is available.” 5The priest answered David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand; there is only consecrated bread—pro-vided the young men have kept away from women.” 6In reply to the priest, David said, “I assure you that women have been kept from us, as always. Whenever I went on a mission, even if the journey was a common one, the vessels of the young men were consecrated; all the more then c-may consecrated food be put into their vessels today.”-c 7So the priest gave him consecrated bread, because there was none there except the bread of display, which had been removed from the presence of the LORD, to be replaced by warm bread as soon as it was taken away.—8Now one of Saul’s officials was there that day, d-detained before the LORD;-d his name was Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s e-chief herdsman.e
9David said to Ahimelech, “Haven’t you got a spear or sword on hand? I didn’t take my sword or any of my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.” 10The priest said, “There is the sword of Goliath the Philistine whom you slew in the valley of Elah; it is over there, wrapped in a cloth, behind the ephod. If you want to take that one, take it, for there is none here but that one.” David replied, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
11That day David continued on his flight from Saul and he came to King Achish of Gath. 12The courtiers of Achish said to him, “Why, that’s David, king of the land! That’s the one of whom they sing as they dance:
Saul has slain his thousands;
David, his tens of thousands.”
13These words worried David and he became very much afraid of King Achish of Gath. 14So he concealed his good sense from them; he feigned madness f-for their benefit.-f He scratched marks on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard. 15And Achish said to his courtiers, “You see the man is raving; why bring him to me? 16Do I lack madmen that you have brought this fellow to rave for me? Should this fellow enter my house?”
22 David departed from there and escaped to the cavea of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s house heard, they joined him down there. 2Everyone who was in straits and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was desperate joined him, and he became their leader; there were about four hundred men with him. 3David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab, and he said to the king of Moab, “Let my father and mother come [and stay] with you, until I know what God will do for me.” 4So he b-led them to-b the king of Moab, and they stayed with him as long as David remained in the stronghold.a 5But the prophet Gad said to David, “Do not stay
