David Avenges the Gibeonites

21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. The Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” ² So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.) ³ David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” ⁴ The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel.” He said, “What do you say that I should do for you?” ⁵ They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel— ⁶ let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.”^[a] The king said, “I will hand them over.”

³ He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

⁴ He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests.