So the people loudly rushed upon the spoils, and took sheep, oxen, and calves, and slaughtered them on the ground; and the people ate them with the blood.

Then Saul said, “Disperse yourselves among the people and say to them, ‘Each one of you bring me his ox or his sheep, and slaughter it here and eat; and do not sin against the Lord by eating it with the blood.’” So all the people brought them that night, each one his ox with him, and they slaughtered them there.

Now go and strike Amalek and completely destroy everything that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the more valuable animals, the lambs, and everything that was good, and were unwilling to destroy them completely; but everything despicable and weak, that they completely destroyed.

But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the bellowing of the oxen which I hear?”

Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have completely destroyed.”

But the people took some of the spoils, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things designated for destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are these all the boys?” And he said, “The youngest is still left, but behold, he is tending the sheep.” So Samuel said to Jesse, “Send word and bring him; for we will not take our places at the table until he comes here.”

Now Eliab his oldest brother heard him when he spoke to the men; and Eliab’s anger burned against David and he said, “Why is it that you have come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I myself know your insolence and the wickedness of your heart; for you have come down in order to see the battle.”

But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a sheep from the flock,

I went out after it and attacked it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth; and when it rose up against me, I grabbed it by its mane and struck it and killed it.

He also struck Nob the city of the priests with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and infants; he also struck oxen, donkeys, and sheep with the edge of the sword.

And he came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave.

Nabal and Abigail

Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about while he was shearing his sheep in Carmel

that David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.

They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.

Abigail Intercedes

Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine, and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain, and a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and she loaded them on donkeys.

David attacked the land and did not leave a man or a woman alive, and he took the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing. Then he returned and came to Achish.

So David had captured all the sheep and the cattle which the people drove ahead of the other livestock, and they said, “This is David’s plunder.”