1 Samuel 25:1-22

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Death of Samuel

25 Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah.

David and the Wife of Nabal

Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. ² And there was a man in Ma′on, whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Ab′igail. The woman was of good understanding and beautiful, but the man was churlish and ill-behaved; he was a Ca′lebite. ⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. ⁶ And thus you shall salute him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. ⁷ I hear that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing, all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes; for we come on a feast day. Pray, give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹ When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David; and then they waited. ¹⁰ And Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who are breaking away from their masters. ¹¹ Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” ¹² So David’s young men turned away, and came back and told him all this. ¹³ And David said to his men, “Every man gird on his sword!” And every man of them girded on his sword; David also girded on his sword; and about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Ab′igail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed at them. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them; ¹⁶ they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore know this and consider what you should do; for evil is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is so ill-natured that one cannot speak to him.”

¹⁸ Then Ab′igail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two skins of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched grain, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. ¹⁹ And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ And as she rode on the ass, and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them. ²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good. ²² God do so to David^[a] and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”