Reaffirming Covenant Loyalty

20 Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah, came before Jonathan and said, “What have I done? What is my crime? What is my sin against your father that he should be seeking my life?”

² “Never!” he said to him. “You will not die! Behold, my father does nothing great or small without disclosing it to me. So why should my father hide this matter from me? It cannot be.”

³ Then David swore again saying, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes. So he must have thought, ‘Let’s not let Jonathan know about this, else he will be grieved.’ But truly as Adonai lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.”

⁴ Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you!”

⁵ So David said to Jonathan, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon, when I am supposed to sit down with the king to eat. Instead, let me go hide myself in the countryside until the third evening. ⁶ If your father misses me at all, then say: ‘David earnestly asked my permission to run to Beth-lehem, his town, for it is the annual sacrifice there for the whole family.’ ⁷ If he says thus, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe; but if he becomes very angry, then know that he is determined to harm me. ⁸ Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of Adonai with you. But if there is any iniquity in me, then kill me yourself! Why should you bring me to your father?”

⁹ Jonathan replied, “Far be it from you! For if I know for sure that my father has determined evil to come on you, then wouldn’t I tell you about it?”

¹⁰ Then David asked Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

¹¹ Jonathan said to David, “Come, let’s go out to the field.” So they both went out to the field. ¹² Then Jonathan said to David, “By Adonai, God of Israel, I will sound out my father about this time tomorrow or the day after. Look, if it is good toward David, wouldn’t I then send word to you and disclose it to you? ¹³ May Adonai do so to Jonathan and even worse, should my father intend to do you evil, if I don’t disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in shalom. So may Adonai be with you as He has been with my father.

¹⁴ “Now if I am still alive, wouldn’t you show me the loyal love of Adonai so I wouldn’t die? ¹⁵ Yet also, don’t cut off your loyal love from my household ever—not even when Adonai cuts off all of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.” ¹⁶ So Jonathan cut a covenant with the house of David, “So may Adonai requite David’s enemies.” ¹⁷ Jonathan made David swear again because of the love he had for him, for he loved him as he loved himself.

¹⁸ Then Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow is the New Moon. You’ll be missed because your seat will be empty. ¹⁹ On the third day, you must go down quickly and come to the place where you hid as you did on that day, and remain close to the stone Ezel. ²⁰ I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. ²¹ Now look, I will send a lad saying, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I specifically say to the lad, ‘See, the arrows are on this side of you—get them,’ then come; for it is safe for you and no danger, as Adonai lives. ²² But if I say to the boy: ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then go your way, for Adonai has released you. ²³ But as for the matter which I and you have spoken about, behold, Adonai is between me and you forever.”

²⁴ So David hid himself in the field, and when the New Moon came, the king sat down to eat a meal. ²⁵ So the king sat on his seat—as usual, the seat by the wall—Jonathan stood up and Abner sat down by Saul’s side, but David’s place was empty. ²⁶ Nevertheless, Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “It must be an accident; he must be ceremonially unclean—yes, that’s it, he’s unclean.”

²⁷ Yet it came to pass on the day following the New Moon, the second day, that David’s place was still empty. So Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why didn’t Jesse’s son come to the meal yesterday or today?”

²⁸ Jonathan answered Saul, “David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Beth-lehem, ²⁹ as he said, ‘Please let me go, for we are going to have a family feast in the town, and my brother has commanded me. So now, if I have found favor in your eyes, let me go, please, to see my brothers. That’s why he hasn’t come to the king’s table.”

³⁰ Then Saul’s rage blazed against Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have chosen the son of Jesse—to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness? ³¹ For as long as the son of Jesse lives on earth, neither you nor your kingship will be secure. Now, send word and bring him to me, for he is a son of death!”

³² But Jonathan answered his father Saul, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?”

³³ Then Saul hurled his spear at him to strike him down. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death. ³⁴ So Jonathan rose up from the table in fierce anger, and did not eat food the second day of the new month, for he was grieved over David, because his father had dishonored him.

³⁵ It came to pass in the morning that Jonathan went out to the field at the time appointed with David, and a little lad was with him. ³⁶ He said to his lad, “Run, find now the arrows that I am about to shoot.” Now as the lad was running, he shot an arrow past him. ³⁷ When the lad reached the place of the arrow which Jonathan had shot, Jonathan cried out after the lad and said, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?” ³⁸ Then Jonathan called out after the lad, “Quick, hurry! Don’t stand there!” So Jonathan’s lad picked up the arrow and came to his master. ³⁹ But the lad knew nothing; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement. ⁴⁰ Then Jonathan gave his weapons to his lad and said to him, “Go, take them back to the town.”

⁴¹ As soon as the lad was gone, David emerged from the south side and fell on his face to the ground and bowed down three times. Then they kissed each other and wept together, though David wept more. ⁴² Then Jonathan said to David, “Go in the shalom that we both have sworn to each other in the Name of Adonai saying: ‘May Adonai be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring, forever.’”

Eating Consecrated Bread

21 Then David got up and left, while Jonathan returned to the town. ² David went to Nob to Ahimelech the kohen. Ahimelech was afraid to meet David, so he said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?”

³ David said to Ahimelech the kohen, “The king has commissioned me with a matter, and told me: ‘Let no one know anything about the mission on which I am sending you, or with what I have commissioned you.’ So, I have directed the young men to such and such a place. ⁴ So now, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever can be found.”

⁵ The kohen answered David saying, “There is no common bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread^[a]—so long as the young men have kept themselves from women.”

⁶ “Of course women have been kept from us, as on previous campaigns,” David answered the kohen. “So the young men’s vessels were holy, though it was an ordinary mission—how much more so will their vessels be holy today!” ⁷ So the kohen gave him consecrated bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which was taken out from the presence of Adonai in order to replace it with hot bread on the day it was taken away.^[b]

⁸ Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before Adonai. His name was Doeg the Edomite, chief of Saul’s shepherds.

⁹ Then David said to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there a spear or sword on hand? For I did not take my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”

¹⁰ The kohen said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine whom you killed in the valley of Elah—it’s here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want to take it for yourself, take it. For there’s nothing else here.”

“There’s nothing like it!” David said. “Give it to me.”

David Pretends Insanity

¹¹ Then David got up and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish, king of Gath. ¹² But Achish’s courtiers said to him, “Isn’t this David king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances saying, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?’”

¹³ David took these words to heart, and he became so afraid of King Achish of Gath ¹⁴ that he changed his demeanor before them and acted like a mad man while in their hands—scribbling on the doors of the gate and letting his saliva run down his beard. ¹⁵ Then Achish said to his courtiers, “Look, you can see the man is insane. Why did you bring him to me?

Bringing Light to the Blind

9 As Yeshua was passing by, He saw a man who had been blind since birth. ² His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?”

³ Yeshua answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be brought to light in him. ⁴ We must do the work of the One who sent Me, so long as it is day! Night is coming when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶ Having said these things, He spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud on the blind man’s eyes. ⁷ He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which is translated Sent). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing.

⁸ Therefore his neighbors and those who had seen him as a beggar kept saying, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”

⁹ “This is the one!” some said.

“No, but it looks like him,” said others.

But the man himself kept saying, “I am!”

¹⁰ So they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

¹¹ He answered, “The Man who is called Yeshua made mud, rubbed it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and then I received my sight!”

¹² “Where is He?” they asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

¹³ They bring to the Pharisees the man who once was blind. ¹⁴ Now the day was Shabbat when Yeshua made the mud and opened the man’s eyes. ¹⁵ So again the Pharisees were asking him how he received his sight. He responded, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see!”

¹⁶ So some of the Pharisees began saying, “This man isn’t from God, because He doesn’t keep Shabbat!” But others were saying, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So there was a split among them.

¹⁷ Again they say to the blind man, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?”

And he said, “He’s a prophet.”

¹⁸ So the Judean leaders didn’t believe that he had been blind and received his sight until they called his parents. ¹⁹ They questioned them, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? Then how does he see now?”

²⁰ Then his parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. ²¹ We don’t know how he now sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him—he’s old enough. He will speak for himself.” ²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Judean leaders. For the Judean leaders had already agreed that anyone who professed Yeshua to be Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue. ²³ That’s why his parents said, “He’s old enough—ask him.”

²⁴ So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner!”

²⁵ The man replied, “I don’t know whether He’s a sinner. One thing I do know is that I was blind, but now I see!”

²⁶ So they asked him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”

²⁷ “I told you already and you didn’t listen!” the man responded. “What, do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?”

²⁸ They railed at him and said, “You’re a disciple of that One, but we’re disciples of Moses! ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this fellow, we don’t know where He is from.”

³⁰ The man replied to them, “That’s amazing! You don’t know where He is from, yet He opened my eyes! ³¹ We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners; but if anyone fears Him and does His will, He hears this one. ³² Since the beginning of the world, no one has ever heard that anyone has opened the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, He couldn’t do anything.”

³⁴ They replied to him, “You were born completely in sin, and you’re teaching us?” And they threw him out.

Is Seeing Believing?

³⁵ Yeshua heard that they had thrown him out. Finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”^[a]

³⁶ The man answered, “Who is He, Sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in Him!”

³⁷ Yeshua said, “You have seen Him—He is the One speaking with you.”

³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him.

³⁹ Yeshua said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who don’t see may see, and the ones who do see may become blind.”

⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard Him say this and asked, “We’re not blind too, are we?”

⁴¹ Yeshua said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, ‘We see.’ So your sin remains.”

From the Rising of the Sun

Psalm 113

Passover Song

Psalm 114