The Famine and Saul's Bloodguilt

1

There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites.”

2

The king called the Gibeonites, and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them: and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);

3

and David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?”

4

The Gibeonites said to him, “It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” He said, “Whatever you say, that will I do for you.”

5

They said to the king, “The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel,

6

let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” The king said, “I will give them.”

7

But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the LORD’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

8

But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

9

He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before the LORD, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.

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