The Death of King Saul^(A)

10 The Philistines ·fought against [attacked] Israel, and the Israelites ran away from them. Many Israelites ·were killed [were slaughtered; ^Lfell dead] on Mount Gilboa. ² The Philistines ·fought hard against [hotly pursued; closed in on] Saul and his sons, killing his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua. ³ The fighting was ·heavy [fierce] around Saul, and the archers ·shot him with their arrows [^Lfound him] and wounded him.

⁴ Then Saul said to ·the officer who carried his armor [his armor bearer], “·Pull out [Draw; Take] your sword and ·stab me [run me through]. If you don’t, these Philistines who are not circumcised will come and ·hurt [abuse] me.” But Saul’s ·officer [armor bearer] refused, because he was ·afraid [terrified]. So Saul took his own sword and ·threw himself [fell] on it. ⁵ When the officer saw that Saul was dead, he ·threw himself [fell] on his own sword and died. ⁶ So Saul and three of his sons died; all his ·family [^Lhouse] died together.

⁷ When the Israelites living in the valley saw that their army had ·run away [fled] and that Saul and his sons were dead, they ·left [abandoned] their towns and ·ran away [fled]. Then the Philistines came and ·settled in [occupied] them.

⁸ The next day when the Philistines came to strip the dead soldiers, they found Saul and his sons ·dead [fallen] on Mount Gilboa. ⁹ The Philistines stripped Saul’s body and took his head and his armor. Then they sent messengers through ·all their country [the land of the Philistines] to tell the good news to their idols and to their people. ¹⁰ The Philistines put Saul’s armor in the ·temple [^Lhouse] of their ·idols [^Lgods] and hung his head in the ·temple [^Lhouse] of Dagon.

¹¹ All the people in Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. ¹² So the ·brave [valiant] men of Jabesh went and got the bodies of Saul and his sons and brought them to Jabesh. They buried their bones under the oak tree in Jabesh [^Cevidently a major landmark]. Then the people of Jabesh fasted for seven days.

¹³ Saul died because he was not faithful to the Lord and ·did not obey [^Lacted unfaithfully against the word of] the Lord. He even went to a medium and asked her for ·advice [counsel] ¹⁴ instead of asking the Lord. This is why the Lord put Saul to death and ·gave [turned over] the kingdom to Jesse’s son David.