³¹ Behold, ^(A)the days are coming that I will cut off your ^[a]arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house.

¹⁷ Then the king said to the guards who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled and did not tell it to me.” But the servants of the king ^(A)would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord. ¹⁸ And the king said to Doeg, “You turn and kill the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned and ^[a]struck the priests, and ^(B)killed on that day eighty-five men who wore a linen ephod. ^19 (C)Also Nob, the city of the priests, he struck with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep—with the edge of the sword.

^20 (D)Now one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, ^(E)escaped and fled after David.

Laws Governing Priests

^10 (A)“And the Levites who went far from Me, when Israel went astray, who strayed away from Me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity.

²¹ “Son of man, I have ^(A)broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and see, ^(B)it has not been bandaged for healing, nor a ^[a]splint put on to bind it, to make it strong enough to hold a sword. ²² Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I am ^(C)against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will ^(D)break his arms, both the strong one and the one that was broken; and I will make the sword fall out of his hand. ^23 (E)I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them throughout the countries. ²⁴ I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he will groan before him with the groanings of a mortally wounded man.

³⁵ The king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his place over the army, and the king put ^(A)Zadok the priest in the place of ^(B)Abiathar.

Abiathar Exiled, Joab Executed

²⁶ And to Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to ^(A)Anathoth, to your own fields, for ^[a]you are deserving of death; but I will not put you to death at this time, ^(B)because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and because you were afflicted every time my father was afflicted.” ²⁷ So Solomon removed Abiathar from being priest to the Lord, that he might ^(C)fulfill the word of the Lord which He spoke concerning the house of Eli at Shiloh.

^3 (A)Ahijah the son of Ahitub, ^(B)Ichabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord’s priest in Shiloh, was ^(C)wearing an ephod. But the people did not know that Jonathan had gone.