1 Samuel 25:1-22

Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him at his house in Ramah. Then David left and went down to the Wilderness of Paran. Now there was a man in Maon whose business and possessions were 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 (now the man’s name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings; he was a Calebite). David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name; and this is what you shall say, ‘Have a long life! Peace be to you, and peace to your house, and peace to all that you have. Now I have heard that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us and we have not harmed them, nor were they missing anything all the time they were in Carmel. Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight [and be well-treated], for we have come on a good (festive) day. Please, give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.’ ” When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David; then they waited. But Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today, each of whom is breaking away from his master. So should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” So David’s young men made their way back and returned; and they came and told him everything that was said [to them by Nabal]. David said to his men, “Each man put on your sword.” So each man put on his sword. David also put on his sword, and about four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed back with the provisions and supplies. But one of Nabal’s young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Listen, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to bless (greet) our master, and he shouted at them [in contempt]. But David’s men were very good to us, and we were not harmed or treated badly, nor did we miss anything as long as we were with them, when we were in the fields. They were a wall [of protection] to us both night and day, all the time that we were with them tending the sheep. Now then, know this and consider what you should do, for evil is [already] planned against our master and against all his household; but he is such a worthless and wicked man that one cannot speak [reasonably] to him.” Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two jugs of wine, five sheep already prepared [for roasting], five measures of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. She said to her young men (servants), “Go on ahead of me; behold, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. It happened that as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by [way of] the hidden part of the mountain, that suddenly David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them. Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good. May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave [alive] even one male of any who belong to him.”