The Death of Samuel
251Samuel died. All Israel gathered together and mourned for him. They buried him at his house in Ramah.
David, Nabal, and Abigail
Then David set out and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.
2There was a man in Maon who made his livelihood in Carmel. This man was very wealthy. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep at Carmel. 3The man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. This woman had good judgment and was beautiful, but her husband was a harsh, unbending man, who behaved badly. He was from the family line of Caleb.
4In the wilderness David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5So David sent ten young men and told them, “Go up to Carmel. Approach Nabal and wish him peace in my name. 6Tell him this: ‘Long life to you! Peace be with you! Peace be with your household! Peace be with all that you have! 7Now I hear that you are shearing sheep. Your shepherds have recently been with us, and we did not harm them. Nothing was missing from them the whole time they were in Carmel. 8Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on a good day. Please give whatever you can to your servants and to your son David.’”
9So David's men came and said all those things to Nabal in the name of David. When they had finished, 10Nabal answered David's servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are so many servants breaking away from their masters these days. 11Should I take my bread, my water, and my meat that I have butchered for my shearers and give it to men when I do not know where they come from?”
12So David's men left and went on their way. They came back and told David all these things.
13David said to his men, “Each of you, strap on your sword!”
So every man strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men followed David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies.
14One of Nabal's young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Listen to me. You need to know what happened. David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed insults at them. 15Those men have been very good to us, and we have not been harmed, nor have we had anything missing the entire time we were in the countryside with them. 16They were a wall around us night and day, the whole time we were among them while we were taking care of the sheep. 17So carefully consider what you should do, for they are determined to bring disaster on our master and on his entire household, since he is such a worthless good-for-nothing that no one can talk to him.”
18Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers[] of wine, five sheep that were already prepared, thirty-seven quarts[] of roasted grain, one hundred clumps of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dried figs. She loaded these supplies on donkeys. 19She said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me. I will follow right after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20As she rode on her donkey and came down to the secluded trail[] on the mountain, she saw that David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them. 21Now David had said, “It was all for nothing that I have protected everything that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing from everything that belonged to him. But he has repaid me evil for good. 22May God punish the enemies of David[] severely and double it, if by the morning light I leave alive so much as one person who urinates against a wall.”[] 