The Death of King Saul

10 The Philistine people fought against the people of Israel. The Israelites ran away from them. And many Israelites were killed on Mount Gilboa. ² The Philistines continued chasing Saul and his sons. And they killed Saul’s sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. ³ The fighting became heavy around Saul. The archers shot him with their arrows and wounded him.

⁴ Then Saul said to the officer who carried his armor, “Pull out your sword and kill me. If you don’t, these men who are not circumcised will come and hurt me.” But the officer was afraid. So he refused to kill Saul. Then Saul took his own sword and fell on it. ⁵ The officer saw that Saul was dead. So he fell on his own sword and died. ⁶ So Saul and three of his sons died. All his family died together.

⁷ The Israelites living in the valley saw that their army had run away. And they saw that Saul and his sons were dead. So they left their towns and ran away. Then the Philistines came and lived in those towns.

⁸ The next day the Philistines came to take valuable things from the dead bodies. On Mount Gilboa they found the bodies of Saul and his sons. ⁹ The Philistines stripped Saul’s body. And they took his head and his armor. They sent messengers through all their country to tell the news to their idols and their people. ¹⁰ The Philistines put Saul’s armor in the temple of their idols. And they hung his head in the temple of Dagon.

¹¹ All the people living in Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. ¹² So all the brave men from Jabesh Gilead went and got the bodies of Saul and his sons. They brought them to Jabesh Gilead. Then they buried the bones of Saul and his sons under the large tree in Jabesh. And they gave up eating for seven days.

¹³ Saul died because he was not faithful to the Lord. He did not obey the Lord. He even went to a medium and asked her for advice. ¹⁴ He did this instead of asking the Lord for help. This is why the Lord put Saul to death and gave the kingdom to Jesse’s son David.