Sunday, 14 April

1.   Then Samuel died; and the Israelites gathered together and lamented for him, and buried him at his home in Ramah. And David arose and went down to the Wilderness of Paran. 2.   Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel, and the man was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3.   The name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance; but the man was harsh and evil in his doings. And he was of the house of Caleb. 4.   When David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep, 5.   David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, "Go up to Carmel, go to Nabal, and greet him in my name. 6.   "And thus you shall say to him who lives in prosperity : ‘Peace be to you, peace to your house, and peace to all that you have! 7.   ‘Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds were with us, and we did not hurt them, nor was there anything missing from them all the while 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. Please give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David.’" 9.   So when David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David, and waited. 10.   Then Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, "Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. 11.   "Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?" 12.   So David’s young men turned on their heels and went back; and they came and told him all these words. 13.   Then David said to his men, "Every man gird on his sword." So every man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword. And about four hundred men went with David, and two hundred stayed with the supplies. 14.   Now one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, "Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master; and he reviled them. 15.   "But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything as long as we accompanied them, when we were in the fields. 16.   "They were a wall to us both by night and day, all the time we were with them keeping the sheep. 17.   "Now therefore, know and consider what you will do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his household. For he is such a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him." 18.   Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five seahs of roasted grain , one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 19.   And she said to her servants, "Go on before me; see, I am coming after you." But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20.   So it was, as she rode on the donkey, that she went down under cover of the hill; and there were David and his men, coming down toward her, and she met them. 21.   Now David had said, "Surely in vain I have protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belongs to him. And he has repaid me evil for good. 22.   "May God do so, and more also, to the enemies of David, if I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light." 23.   Now when Abigail saw David, she hastened to dismount from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground. 24.   So she fell at his feet and said: "On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be ! And please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maidservant. 25.   "Please, let not my lord regard this scoundrel Nabal. For as his name is , so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. But I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent. 26.   "Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD lives and as your soul lives, since the LORD has held you back from coming to bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now then, let your enemies and those who seek harm for my lord be as Nabal. 27.   "And now this present which your maidservant has brought to my lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28.   "Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant. For the LORD will certainly make for my lord an enduring house, because my lord fights the battles of the LORD, and evil is not found in you throughout your days. 29.   "Yet a man has risen to pursue you and seek your life, but the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the LORD your God; and the lives of your enemies He shall sling out, as from the pocket of a sling. 30.   "And it shall come to pass, when the LORD has done for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, 31.   "that this will be no grief to you, nor offense of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself. But when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your maidservant." 32.   Then David said to Abigail: "Blessed is the LORD God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! 33.   "And blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand. 34.   "For indeed, as the LORD God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you, unless you had hastened and come to meet me, surely by morning light no males would have been left to Nabal!" 35.   So David received from her hand what she had brought him, and said to her, "Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person." 36.   Now Abigail went to Nabal, and there he was, holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; therefore she told him nothing, little or much, until morning light. 37.   So it was, in the morning, when the wine had gone from Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became like a stone. 38.   Then it came about, after about ten days, that the LORD struck Nabal, and he died. 39.   So when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the LORD, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept His servant from evil! For the LORD has returned the wickedness of Nabal on his own head." And David sent and proposed to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40.   When the servants of David had come to Abigail at Carmel, they spoke to her saying, "David sent us to you, to ask you to become his wife." 41.   Then she arose, bowed her face to the earth, and said, "Here is your maidservant, a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord." 42.   So Abigail rose in haste and rode on a donkey, attended by five of her maidens; and she followed the messengers of David, and became his wife. 43.   David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and so both of them were his wives. 44.   But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

1.   Now the Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, "Is David not hiding in the hill of Hachilah, opposite Jeshimon?" 2.   Then Saul arose and went down to the Wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the Wilderness of Ziph. 3.   And Saul encamped in the hill of Hachilah, which is opposite Jeshimon, by the road. But David stayed in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness. 4.   David therefore sent out spies, and understood that Saul had indeed come. 5.   So David arose and came to the place where Saul had encamped. And David saw the place where Saul lay, and Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army. Now Saul lay within the camp, with the people encamped all around him. 6.   Then David answered, and said to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying, "Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp?" And Abishai said, "I will go down with you." 7.   So David and Abishai came to the people by night; and there Saul lay sleeping within the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. And Abner and the people lay all around him. 8.   Then Abishai said to David, "God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now therefore, please, let me strike him at once with the spear, right to the earth; and I will not have to strike him a second time!" 9.   And David said to Abishai, "Do not destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against the LORD’S anointed, and be guiltless?" 10.   David said furthermore, " As the LORD lives, the LORD shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish. 11.   "The LORD forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the LORD’S anointed. But please, take now the spear and the jug of water that are by his head, and let us go." 12.   So David took the spear and the jug of water by Saul’s head, and they got away; and no man saw it or knew it or awoke. For they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from the LORD had fallen on them. 13.   Now David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of a hill afar off, a great distance being between them. 14.   And David called out to the people and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, "Do you not answer, Abner?" Then Abner answered and said, "Who are you, calling out to the king?" 15.   So David said to Abner, " Are you not a man? And who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not guarded your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. 16.   "This thing that you have done is not good. As the LORD lives, you deserve to die, because you have not guarded your master, the LORD’S anointed. And now see where the king’s spear is , and the jug of water that was by his head." 17.   Then Saul knew David’s voice, and said, " Is that your voice, my son David?" And David said, " It is my voice, my lord, O king." 18.   And he said, "Why does my lord thus pursue his servant? For what have I done, or what evil is in my hand? 19.   "Now therefore, please, let my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the LORD has stirred you up against me, let Him accept an offering. But if it is the children of men, may they be cursed before the LORD, for they have driven me out this day from sharing in the inheritance of the LORD, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’ 20.   "So now, do not let my blood fall to the earth before the face of the LORD. For the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains." 21.   Then Saul said, "I have sinned. Return, my son David. For I will harm you no more, because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Indeed I have played the fool and erred exceedingly." 22.   And David answered and said, "Here is the king’s spear. Let one of the young men come over and get it. 23.   "May the LORD repay every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the LORD delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the LORD’S anointed. 24.   "And indeed, as your life was valued much this day in my eyes, so let my life be valued much in the eyes of the LORD, and let Him deliver me out of all tribulation." 25.   Then Saul said to David, " May you be blessed, my son David! You shall both do great things and also still prevail." So David went on his way, and Saul returned to his place.

1.   Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. 2.   For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3.   For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4.   For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. 5.   For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, "The man who does those things shall live by them." 6.   But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, "Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’" (that is, to bring Christ down from above ) 7.   or, "‘Who will descend into the abyss?’" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8.   But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9.   that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10.   For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11.   For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." 12.   For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13.   For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." 14.   How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15.   And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" 16.   But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" 17.   So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18.   But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: "Their sound has gone out to all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world." 19.   But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says: "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to anger by a foolish nation." 20.   But Isaiah is very bold and says: "I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me." 21.   But to Israel he says: "All day long I have stretched out My hands To a disobedient and contrary people."