⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal ^(A)was shearing his sheep. ⁵ 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. ⁶ And thus you shall greet him: ^(B)‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have. ⁷ I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, ^(C)and they missed nothing all the time 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 ^(D)on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, ^(A)and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them. ¹⁶ They were ^(B)a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.