1 Samuel 25:1–44

¹ When Samuel died, all Israel gathered to mourn for him; and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran. ² Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. He was a very wealthy man with a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. ³ His name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was harsh and evil in his dealings. ⁴ While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men and instructed them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel. Greet him in my name ⁶ and say to him, ‘Long life to you, and peace to you and your house and to all that belongs to you. ⁷ Now I hear that it is time for shearing. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harass them, and nothing of theirs was missing the whole time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on the day of a feast. Please give whatever you can afford to your servants and to your son David.’” ⁹ When David’s young men arrived, they relayed all these words to Nabal on behalf of David. Then they waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal asked them, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants these days are breaking away from their masters. ¹¹ Why should I take my bread and water and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give them to these men whose origin I do not know?” ¹² So David’s men turned around and went back, and they relayed to him all these words. ¹³ And David said to his men, “Strap on your swords!” So David and all his men put on their swords, and about four hundred men followed David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies. ¹⁴ Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s young men informed Nabal’s wife Abigail, “Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he scolded them. ¹⁵ Yet these men were very good to us. When we were in the field, we were not harassed, and nothing of ours went missing the whole time we lived among them. ¹⁶ They were a wall around us, both day and night, the whole time we were herding our sheep near them. ¹⁷ Now consider carefully what you must do, because disaster looms over our master and all his household. For he is such a scoundrel that nobody can speak to him!” ¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys ¹⁹ and said to her young men, “Go ahead of me. I will b…