1Samuel died. All the Israelites gathered together and mourned for him, and they buried him at his house in Ramah. Then David set out and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
2There was a man in Maon whose property was in Carmel. The man was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
3The man's name was Nabal, and his wife's name was Abigail. She was a woman of good sense and beautiful to look at, but the man was harsh and did evil things. He was from the house of Caleb.
4In the wilderness David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
5So David sent out ten young men. David said to them, "Go up to Carmel. Go to Nabal and greet him in my name."
6Say this to the man who lives in such plenty: 'Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
7Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds were with us, and we did not harm them. Nothing of theirs went missing all the time they were in Carmel.
8"Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let my young men find favour in your eyes, for we come on a good day. Please give whatever you can to your servants, and to your son David.'"
9When David's young men arrived, they said all these words to Nabal in David's name, and then they waited.
10Nabal answered David's servants, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who break away from their masters."
11"Shall I take my bread, and my water, and the meat I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?"
12So David's young men turned around and went back. They came and told David everything Nabal had said.
13David said to his men, "Every man strap on his sword." So every man strapped on his sword, and David strapped on his sword too. About four hundred men went up after David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies.
14But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, "Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he shouted insults at them."
15But the men were very good to us. We were not harmed, and we missed nothing all the time we went about with them in the fields.
16They were a wall around us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them keeping the sheep.
17"So now think it over, and decide what you will do. Disaster is settled against our master and against all his household. He is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him."
18Then Abigail hurried. She took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep already prepared, five measures of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and she loaded them on donkeys.
19She said to her servants, "Go on ahead of me. I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20As she rode on the donkey, she came down under cover of the hill. And there were David and his men coming down towards her, and she met them.
21Now David had said, "It was for nothing that I guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing of his went missing. He has paid me back evil for good."
22"May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning light I leave alive one male of all who belong to him."
23When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down off the donkey. She fell on her face before David and bowed to the ground.
24She fell at his feet and said, "On me, my lord, on me let this guilt be. Please let your servant speak to you, and hear the words of your servant."
25Please, my lord, pay no attention to this worthless man Nabal. He is just like his name. Nabal is his name, and folly goes with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men my lord sent.
26Now, my lord, as the LORD lives and as you live, the LORD has held you back from shedding blood and from taking revenge with your own hand. So let your enemies, and those who seek to harm my lord, be like Nabal.
27And now let this gift which your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.
28Please forgive the wrong of your servant. The LORD will certainly make my lord a lasting house, because my lord fights the battles of the LORD, and no evil has been found in you all your days.
29A man has risen up to chase you and to seek your life. But the life of my lord will be bound in the bundle of the living with the LORD your God. And the lives of your enemies he will sling away, as from the pocket of a sling.
30And when the LORD has done for my lord all the good he has promised about you, and has made you ruler over Israel,
31"then this will not be a grief to you, or a trouble to my lord's heart, that you shed blood without cause, or that my lord took revenge for himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant."
32David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who sent you today to meet me."
33And blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from shedding blood and from taking revenge with my own hand.
34"For truly, as the LORD God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from harming you, if you had not hurried and come to meet me, not one male of Nabal's people would have been left alive by morning light."
35So David took from her hand what she had brought him, and he said to her, "Go up to your house in peace. See, I have listened to your voice and granted your request."
36Abigail came to Nabal, and there he was, holding a feast in his house like the feast of a king. Nabal's heart was merry in him, for he was very drunk. So she told him nothing at all until morning light.
37In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things. Then his heart died within him, and he became like a stone.
38About ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.
39When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the LORD, who has taken up my case against the insult of Nabal, and has kept his servant from doing evil. The LORD has turned Nabal's wickedness back on his own head." Then David sent word to Abigail, to ask her to be his wife.
40When David's servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, "David has sent us to you, to take you to be his wife."
41She stood up, and bowed with her face to the ground, and said, "Look, let your servant be a slave to wash the feet of my lord's servants."
42Abigail hurried and got up and rode on a donkey, with five of her maids following her. She went after David's messengers, and became his wife.