1 Samuel
31
- Now the Philistines fought against Israel;
the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.
- The Philistines pressed hard after Saul
and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua.
- The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and
when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
- Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw
your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and
run me through and abuse me." But his armor-bearer was terrified and
would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
- When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was
dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.
- So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer
and all his men died together that same day.
- When the Israelites along the valley and
those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul
and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines
came and occupied them.
- The next day, when the Philistines came
to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.
- They cut off his head and stripped off his
armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to
proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people.
- They put his armor in the temple of the
Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
- When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of
what the Philistines had done to Saul,
- all their valiant men journeyed through
the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from
the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them.
- Then they took their bones and buried them
under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.
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