⁶ As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the Israelite towns, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul with timbrels, songs of joy, and instruments of music.

⁷ And the women responded as they laughed and frolicked, saying, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.

⁸ And Saul was very angry, for the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed only thousands. What more can he have but the kingdom?

⁹ And Saul [jealously] eyed David from that day forward.

¹⁷ Saul said to David, My elder daughter Merab I will give you as wife; only serve me courageously and fight the Lord’s battles. For Saul thought, Let not my hand, but the Philistines’ hand, be upon him.

¹⁸ David said to Saul, Who am I, and what is my life or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be the king’s son-in-law?

¹⁹ But at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as wife.

²⁰ Now Michal, Saul’s daughter, loved David; and they told Saul, and it pleased him.

²¹ Saul thought, I will give her to him that she may be a snare to him and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. So Saul said to David a second time, You shall now be my son-in-law.

²² And Saul commanded his servants to speak to David privately and say, The king delights in you, and all his servants love you; now then, become [his] son-in-law.

²³ Saul’s servants told those words to David. David said, Does it seem to you a light thing to be a king’s son-in-law, seeing I am a poor man and lightly esteemed?

²⁴ And the servants of Saul told him what David said.

²⁵ Saul said, Say this to David, The king wants no dowry but a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to avenge himself of the king’s enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the Philistines’ hands.

²⁶ When his servants told David these words, it pleased [him] well to become the king’s son-in-law. Before the days expired,

²⁷ David went, he and his men, and slew two hundred Philistine men, and brought their foreskins and gave them in full number to the king, that he might become the king’s son-in-law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter as wife.

²⁸ When Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David and that Michal [his] daughter loved him,

²⁹ Saul was still more afraid of David; and Saul became David’s constant enemy.