David

When Saul sent the messengers to seize David, Michal said, “He is ill.”

But Saul sent the messengers back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so I can kill him.”

So David ran away and escaped. And he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there.

When Saul was told that David was at Naioth in Ramah,

he sent messengers to capture him. But when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel leading them, the Spirit of God came upon them, and Saul’s messengers also began to prophesy.

Finally, Saul himself left for Ramah and came to the large cistern at Secu, where he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” “At Naioth in Ramah,” he was told.

Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah. He came to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my iniquity? How have I sinned against your father, that he wants to take my life?”

But David again vowed, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or he will be grieved.’ As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”

Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you desire, I will do for you.”

So David told him, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon, and I am supposed to dine with the king. Instead, let me go and hide in the field until the third evening from now.

If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David urgently requested my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because there is an annual sacrifice for his whole clan.’

Then David asked Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

“Come,” he replied, “let us go out to the field.” So the two of them went out into the field,

and Jonathan said, “By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will sound out my father by this time tomorrow or the next day. If he is favorable toward you, will I not send for you and tell you?

and do not ever cut off your loving devotion from my household—not even when the LORD cuts off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD hold David’s enemies accountable.”

And Jonathan had David reaffirm his vow out of love for him, for Jonathan loved David as he loved himself.

Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon, and you will be missed if your seat is empty.

So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon had come, the king sat down to eat.

He sat in his usual place by the wall, opposite Jonathan and beside Abner, but David’s place was empty.

But on the day after the New Moon, the second day, David’s place was still empty, and Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?”

Jonathan answered, “David urgently requested my permission to go to Bethlehem,

Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan to kill him; so Jonathan knew that his father was determined to kill David.

Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger and did not eat any food that second day of the month, for he was grieved by his father’s shameful treatment of David.

In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for the appointment with David, and a small boy was with him.