David's Sling Against Goliath's Sword

1. Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim. 2. Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines. 3. The Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them. 4. A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out. 5. He had a helmet of brass on his head, and he wore a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. 6. He had brass shin armor on his legs, and a brass javelin between his shoulders. 7. The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. His shield bearer went before him. 8. He stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why have you come out to set your battle in array? Am I not a Philistine, and you servants to Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then will we be your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you will be our servants and serve us.” 10. The Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel today! Give me a man, that we may fight together!” 11. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid. 12. Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons. The man was an elderly old man in the days of Saul. 13. The three oldest sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and next to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. 14. David was the youngest; and the three oldest followed Saul. 15. Now David went back and forth from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. 16. The Philistine came near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days. 17. Jesse said to David his son, “Now take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers; 18. and bring these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers are doing, and bring back news.” 19. Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. 20. David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took and went, as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the place of the wagons, as the army which was going out to the fight shouted for the battle. 21. Israel and the Philistines put the battle in array, army against army. 22. David left his baggage in the hand of the keeper of the baggage, and ran to the army, and came and greeted his brothers. 23. As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines, and said the same words; and David heard them. 24. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were terrified. 25. The men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who has come up? He has surely come up to defy Israel. The king will give great riches to the man who kills him, and will give him his daughter, and make his father’s house free in Israel.” 26. David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, “What shall be done to the man who kills this Philistine, and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” 27. The people answered him in this way, saying, “So shall it be done to the man who kills him.” 28. Eliab his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men; and Eliab’s anger burned against David, and he said, “Why have you come down? With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride, and the naughtiness of your heart; for you have come down that you might see the battle.” 29. David said, “What have I now done? Is there not a cause?” 30. He turned away from him toward another, and spoke like that again; and the people answered him again the same way. 31. When the words were heard which David spoke, they rehearsed them before Saul; and he sent for him. 32. David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 33. Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.” 34. David said to Saul, “Your servant was keeping his father’s sheep; and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock, 35. I went out after him, and struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and killed him. 36. Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37. David said, “Yahweh who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go! Yahweh will be with you.” 38. Saul dressed David with his clothing. He put a helmet of brass on his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. 39. David strapped his sword on his clothing, and he tried to move; for he had not tested it. David said to Saul, “I can’t go with these; for I have not tested them.” Then David took them off. 40. He took his staff in his hand, and chose for himself five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag which he had. His sling was in his hand; and he came near to the Philistine. 41. The Philistine walked and came near to David; and the man who bore the shield went before him. 42. When the Philistine looked around, and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and had a good looking face. 43. The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” The Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.” 45. Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46. Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you, and take your head from off you. I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines today to the birds of the sky, and to the wild animals of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47. and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh doesn’t save with sword and spear; for the battle is Yahweh’s, and he will give you into our hand.” 48. When the Philistine arose, and walked and came near to meet David, David hurried, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 49. David put his hand in his bag, took a stone, and slung it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. 50. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine, and killed him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. 51. Then David ran, stood over the Philistine, took his sword, drew it out of its sheath, killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. 52. The men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted, and pursued the Philistines as far as Gai and to the gates of Ekron. The wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Shaaraim, even to Gath and to Ekron. 53. The children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines and they plundered their camp. 54. David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armor in his tent. 55. When Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the captain of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?” Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I can’t tell.” 56. The king said, “Inquire whose son the young man is!” 57. As David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 58. Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, you young man?” David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” 1. When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2. Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. 3. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David, and his clothing, even including his sword, his bow, and his sash. 5. David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely; and Saul set him over the men of war. It was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants. 6. As they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with instruments of music. 7. The women sang to one another as they played, and said, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 8. Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. What can he have more but the kingdom?” 9. Saul watched David from that day and forward. 10. On the next day, an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand; 11. and Saul threw the spear, for he said, “I will pin David even to the wall!” David escaped from his presence twice. 12. Saul was afraid of David, because Yahweh was with him, and had departed from Saul. 13. Therefore Saul removed him from his presence, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people. 14. David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and Yahweh was with him. 15. When Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he stood in awe of him. 16. But all Israel and Judah loved David; for he went out and came in before them. 17. Saul said to David, “Behold, my elder daughter Merab, I will give her to you as wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight Yahweh’s battles.” For Saul said, “Don’t let my hand be on him, but let the hand of the Philistines be on him.” 18. David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my life, or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?” 19. But at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as wife. 20. Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David; and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. 21. Saul said, I will give her to him, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Therefore Saul said to David, “You shall today be my son-in-law a second time.” 22. Saul commanded his servants, “Talk with David secretly, and say, ‘Behold, the king has delight in you, and all his servants love you. Now therefore be the king’s son-in-law.’” 23. Saul’s servants spoke those words in the ears of David. David said, “Does it seem to you a light thing to be the king’s son-in-law, since I am a poor man, and little known?” 24. The servants of Saul told him, saying, “David spoke like this.” 25. Saul said, “Tell David, ‘The king desires no dowry except one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies.’” Now Saul thought he would make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. 26. When his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king’s son-in-law. Before the deadline, 27. David arose and went, he and his men, and killed two hundred men of the Philistines. Then David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full number to the king, that he might be the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him Michal his daughter as wife. 28. Saul saw and knew that Yahweh was with David; and Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved him. 29. Saul was even more afraid of David; and Saul was David’s enemy continually. 30. Then the princes of the Philistines went out; and as often as they went out, David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed. 1. Saul spoke to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, greatly delighted in David. 2. Jonathan told David, saying, “Saul my father seeks to kill you. Now therefore, please take care of yourself in the morning, and live in a secret place, and hide yourself. 3. I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will talk with my father about you; and if I see anything, I will tell you.” 4. Jonathan spoke good of David to Saul his father, and said to him, “Don’t let the king sin against his servant, against David; because he has not sinned against you, and because his works have been very good toward you; 5. for he put his life in his hand, and struck the Philistine, and Yahweh worked a great victory for all Israel. You saw it, and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without a cause?” 6. Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan: and Saul swore, “As Yahweh lives, he shall not be put to death.” 7. Jonathan called David, and Jonathan showed him all those things. Then Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence, as before. 8. There was war again. David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and killed them with a great slaughter; and they fled before him. 9. An evil spirit from Yahweh was on Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand; and David was playing with his hand. 10. Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he stuck the spear into the wall. David fled, and escaped that night. 11. Saul sent messengers to David’s house, to watch him, and to kill him in the morning. Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, “If you don’t save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 12. So Michal let David down through the window. He went away, fled, and escaped. 13. Michal took the teraphim, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with clothes. 14. When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” 15. Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” 16. When the messengers came in, behold, the teraphim was in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair at its head. 17. Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me thus, and let my enemy go, so that he is escaped?” Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’” 18. Now David fled and escaped, and came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. He and Samuel went and lived in Naioth. 19. Saul was told, saying, “Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah.” 20. Saul sent messengers to seize David: and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as head over them, God’s Spirit came on Saul’s messengers, and they also prophesied. 21. When Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. 22. Then he also went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is in Secu: and he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” One said, “Behold, they are at Naioth in Ramah.” 23. He went there to Naioth in Ramah. Then God’s Spirit came on him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 24. He also stripped off his clothes, and he also prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

1. Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2. You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4. You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? 6. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7. Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9. Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11. Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12. Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another? 13. Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” 14. Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. 15. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” 16. But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17. To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin. 1. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. 2. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. 4. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. 5. You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you. 7. Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain. 8. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9. Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door. 10. Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11. Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 12. But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”; so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy. 13. Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises. 14. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, 15. and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16. Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective. 17. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. 19. Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, 20. let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

1. Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth. 2. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, 3. Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. 4. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done. 5. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; 6. that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children, 7. that they might set their hope in God, and not forget God’s deeds, but keep his commandments, 8. and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn’t make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God. 9. The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. 10. They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law. 11. They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them. 12. He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 13. He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap. 14. In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire. 15. He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. 16. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers. 17. Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert. 18. They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire. 19. Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 20. Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide meat for his people?” 21. Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel, 22. because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation. 23. Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven. 24. He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky. 25. Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full. 26. He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind. 27. He rained also meat on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas. 28. He let them fall in the middle of their camp, around their habitations. 29. So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire. 30. They didn’t turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths, 31. when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of their fattest, and struck down the young men of Israel. 32. For all this they still sinned, and didn’t believe in his wondrous works. 33. Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror. 34. When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly. 35. They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer. 36. But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue. 37. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant. 38. But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his wrath. 39. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again. 40. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert! 41. They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. 42. They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary; 43. how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan, 44. he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink. 45. He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. 46. He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust. 47. He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost. 48. He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. 49. He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil. 50. He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, 51. and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham. 52. But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53. He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54. He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken. 55. He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. 56. Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn’t keep his testimonies; 57. but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were twisted like a deceitful bow. 58. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images. 59. When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel; 60. So that he abandoned the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; 61. and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand. 62. He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance. 63. Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song. 64. Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep. 65. Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine. 66. He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach. 67. Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn’t choose the tribe of Ephraim, 68. But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved. 69. He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever. 70. He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; 71. from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. 72. So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.