1 Samuel 25:18-31

New International Version

¹⁸Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs^[a] of roasted grain,^(A) a hundred cakes of raisins^(B) and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.^(C) ¹⁹Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead;^(D) I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell^(E) her husband Nabal.

²⁰As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. ²¹David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing.^(F) He has paid^(G) me back evil^(H) for good. ²²May God deal with David,^[b] be it ever so severely,^(I) if by morning I leave alive one male^(J) of all who belong to him!”

²³When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.^(K) ²⁴She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord,^(L) and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. ²⁵Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool^(M),^(N) and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. ²⁶And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed^(O) and from avenging^(P) yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal.^(Q) ²⁷And let this gift,^(R) which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.

²⁸“Please forgive^(S) your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting^(T) dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles,^(U) and no wrongdoing^(V) will be found in you as long as you live. ²⁹Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life,^(W) the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl^(X) away as from the pocket of a sling.^(Y) ³⁰When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler^(Z) over Israel, ³¹my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember^(AA) your servant.”^(AB)