Ishbaal Assassinated

4 When Saul’s son Ishbaal^[a] heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed.^{(A) 2} Saul’s son had two captains of raiding bands; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other was Rechab. They were sons of Rimmon, a Benjaminite from Beeroth, for Beeroth is considered to belong to Benjamin.^{(B) 3} (Now the people of Beeroth had fled to Gittaim and are there as resident aliens to this day.)^(C)

⁴ Saul’s son Jonathan had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, and in her haste to flee it happened that he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.^(D)

⁵ Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ishbaal^[b] while he was taking his noonday rest.^{(E) 6} They came inside the house as though to take wheat,^[c] and they struck him in the stomach; then Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped.^{(F) 7} Now they had come into the house while he was lying on his couch in his bedchamber; they attacked him, killed him, and beheaded him. Then they took his head and traveled by way of the Arabah all night long. ⁸ They brought the head of Ishbaal^[d] to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of Ishbaal^[e] son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life; the Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring.”^(G)

⁹ David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity,^{(H) 10} when the one who told me, ‘See, Saul is dead,’ thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag—this was the reward I gave him for his news.^{(I) 11} How much more, then, when wicked men have killed a righteous man on his bed in his own house! And now shall I not require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?”^{(J) 12} So David commanded the young men, and they killed them; they cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies beside the pool at Hebron. But the head of Ishbaal^[f] they took and buried in the tomb of Abner at Hebron.^(K)

²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.^{(A) 26} Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.^{(B) 27} When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.^{(C) 28} But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” ²⁹ The jailer^[a] called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”^{(D) 31} They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”^{(E) 32} They spoke the word of the Lord^[b] to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. ³⁴ He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.^(F)

³⁵ When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” ³⁶ And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.”^{(G) 37} But Paul replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison, and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.”^{(H) 38} The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans,^{(I) 39} so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.^{(J) 40} After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home, and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.^(K)

The Tradition of the Elders

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands,^[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders,^{(A) 4} and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash,^[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.^[c])^{(B) 5} So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?”^{(C) 6} He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

⁸ “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”^(E)

⁹ Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!^{(F) 10} For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’^{(G) 11} But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God^[d]),^{(H) 12} then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, ¹³ thus nullifying the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”^[e]

¹⁷ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸ He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, ¹⁹ since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) ²⁰ And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. ²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”