Saul and his sons die in war

10 The Philistines fought against the Israelites.^[a] The Israelites ran away, and the Philistines killed many of them on Gilboa mountain. ² The Philistines chased after Saul and his sons to catch them. They killed Saul's sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. ³ The Philistines were fighting the battle all around Saul. Some of their soldiers saw Saul and they shot their arrows at him. The arrows hurt Saul very much.

⁴ Saul said to the young man who carried his armour, ‘Kill me now with your sword. I do not want these foreign men to come and be cruel to me.’ But the young man would not agree to kill Saul because he was too afraid. So Saul took his own sword and he threw himself onto it so that he died. ⁵ The young man saw that Saul was dead. So he threw himself onto his own sword and he died too. ⁶ So Saul died there, with his three sons. His whole family died together.

⁷ All the Israelites who lived in Jezreel valley saw that their army had run away from the Philistines. They also saw that Saul and his sons were dead. So they left their towns and they ran away. Then the Philistines came to live in those towns.

⁸ On the day after the battle, the Philistines came to take all the valuable things from the dead soldiers. They found the dead bodies of Saul and his sons on Gilboa mountain. ⁹ They removed everything from Saul's dead body. They took away his head and his weapons. Then they sent men through all the country of the Philistines with the news of Saul's death. These men told the news to all their people and to their idols as well. ¹⁰ They put Saul's weapons in the temple of their gods. They hung his head in the temple of their god, Dagon.

¹¹ All the Israelites who lived in Jabesh Gilead heard about what the Philistines had done to Saul's body. ¹² So all their brave soldiers went to fetch the dead bodies of Saul and his sons. They took them to Jabesh Gilead. They buried the bones under the large tree there. The people in Jabesh Gilead did not eat any food for seven days because they were so sad.

¹³ Saul died because he turned away from the Lord. He did not obey the Lord's commands. He even tried to get advice from the spirits of dead people. ¹⁴ He did not ask the Lord to tell him what he should do. So the Lord punished him with death. The Lord gave the kingdom of Israel to Jesse's son, David, instead.