1 Samuel 19

1Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants to kill David, but Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted greatly in David.

2Jonathan told David, "Saul my father seeks to kill you, so now please keep watch in the morning, stay in a hiding place, and conceal yourself."

3I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak about you to my father; what I see, I will tell you.

4Jonathan spoke well of David to his father Saul and said to him, "Do not let the king sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds toward you have been very good."

5He placed his life in his hand and struck the Philistine, and Yahweh accomplished great deliverance for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood to kill David without cause?

6Saul listened to Jonathan's voice, and Saul swore, "As Yahweh lives, he shall not die."

7Jonathan called David and told him all these words. Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was before him as it had been yesterday and the day before yesterday.

8War broke out again, David went out and fought the Philistines, struck them with a great slaughter, and they fled before him.

9Yahweh's evil spirit came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, while David played with his hand.

10Saul sought to strike David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul's presence, and Saul drove the spear into the wall. David fled and escaped that night.

11Saul dispatched messengers to David's house to guard him and slay him in the morning. Michal his wife warned David, "If you do not deliver your life tonight, tomorrow you will be put to death."

12Michal lowered David through the window, and he departed, fled, and escaped.

13Michal took the teraphim and put it on the bed, set a goatskin pillow at its head, and covered it with the garment.

14When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, "He is sick."

15Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, "Bring him up to me in the bed, to kill him."

16When the messengers arrived, behold, the teraphim lay on the bed, with a goats'-hair pillow at its head.

17Saul said to Michal, "Why have you tricked me this way and released my enemy so he escaped?" Michal said to Saul, "He told me, 'Let me go—why should I kill you?'"

18David fled and escaped, came to Samuel in Ramah, and told him everything that Saul had done to him; he and Samuel went and lived in Naioth.

19Saul was told, "See, David is in Naioth in Ramah."

20Saul sent messengers to seize David, but when they saw the band of prophets prophesying, with Samuel stationed over them, God's spirit came upon Saul's messengers, and they too prophesied.

21They told Saul, and he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. Saul sent messengers a third time, and they also prophesied.

22He also went to Ramah and reached the great well in Secu, and asked, "Where are Samuel and David?" One said, "Look, they are in Naioth in Ramah."

23He went there to Naioth in Ramah, and the Spirit of God was upon him also; he went along prophesying until he reached Naioth in Ramah.

24He stripped off his clothes too, and prophesied before Samuel as well, then lay naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, "Is Saul also among the prophets?"