¹¹ Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous.

What God Requires

¹¹ When David rose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying,^{(A) 12} “Go and say to David: Thus says the Lord: Three things I offer^[a] you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.”^{(B) 13} So Gad came to David and told him; he asked him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you on your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider and decide what answer I shall return to the one who sent me.”

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.)^{(A) 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?”^{(B) 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?”^{(C) 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,^{(D) 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.”

² Then the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us what we should send with it to its place.”^{(A) 3} They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it empty, but by all means return it with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed and forgiven;^[a] will not his hand then turn from you?”^(B)