1 Samuel 30:7-20

David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, “Please bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought him the ephod. David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this band [of raiders]? Will I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue, for you will certainly overtake them, and you will certainly rescue [the captives].” So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and came to the brook Besor; there those [who could not continue] remained behind. But David pursued [the Amalekites], he and four hundred men, for two hundred who were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor stayed behind. They found an Egyptian [who had collapsed] in the field and brought him to David, and gave him bread and he ate, and they gave him water to drink, and they gave him a piece of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins; and when he had eaten, his energy returned, for he had not eaten bread or had any water to drink for three days and three nights. David said to him, “To whom do you belong, and where are you from?” He said, “I am a young man from Egypt, a servant of an Amalekite; and my master abandoned me [as useless] when I fell sick three days ago. We made a raid on the Negev of the Cherethites, and on that which belongs to Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag with fire.” Then David said to him, “Will you take me down to this band [of raiders]?” And he said, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me or turn me over to the hand of my master, and I will bring you down to this band.” When he brought David down, the Amalekites had disbanded and spread over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing because of all the great spoil they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah. Then David [and his men] struck them down [in battle] from twilight until the evening of the next day; and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode camels and fled. So David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and rescued his two wives. Nothing of theirs was missing whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken; David recovered it all. So David captured all the flocks and herds [which the enemy had], and [the people] drove those animals before him and said, “This is David’s spoil.”

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