M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

David and Nabal the Fool

25 Samuel died. All the Israelites met together and mourned his death. They buried him at his home in Ramah.

Then David moved to the desert of Maon.^{[a] 2} There was a very rich man living in Maon. He had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats. That man was in Carmel taking care of some business. He went there to cut the wool from his sheep. ³ This man’s name was Nabal.^[b] He was from Caleb’s family. Nabal’s wife was named Abigail. She was a wise and beautiful woman, but Nabal was a mean and cruel man.

⁴ David was in the desert when he heard that Nabal was cutting the wool from his sheep. ⁵ David sent ten young men to talk to Nabal. He told them, “Go to Carmel. Find Nabal and tell him ‘Hello’ for me.” ⁶ David gave them this message for Nabal: “May you and your family be well and all that you own be well. ⁷ I heard that you are cutting wool from your sheep. Your shepherds were with us for a while, and we did nothing wrong to them. We never took anything from your shepherds while they were at Carmel. ⁸ Ask your servants and they will tell you this is true. Please be kind to my young men. We come to you now, at this happy time. Please give these young men anything you can. Please do this for me, your friend^[c] David.”

⁹ David’s men went to Nabal. They gave his message to Nabal, ¹⁰ but Nabal said, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? There are many slaves who have run away from their masters these days. ¹¹ I have bread and water, and I have the meat I killed for my servants who cut the wool from my sheep. But I won’t give them to men I don’t even know.”

¹² David’s men went back and told him everything that Nabal had said. ¹³ David’s response was, “Put on your swords.” So David and his men put on their swords. About 400 men went with David while 200 of them stayed with the supplies.

Abigail Prevents Trouble

¹⁴ One of Nabal’s servants spoke to Nabal’s wife Abigail. The servant said, “David sent messengers from the desert to meet our master, but Nabal was rude to them. ¹⁵ These men were very good to us while we were out in the fields with the sheep. David’s men were with us the whole time, and they never did anything wrong to us. They did not take anything from us. ¹⁶ His men protected us night and day. They were like a wall around us—they protected us while we were with them caring for the sheep. ¹⁷ Nabal was foolish to say what he did. Terrible trouble is coming to our master and all his family. You need to think of something to do.”

¹⁸ Abigail quickly gathered up 200 loaves of bread, two full wine bags, five cooked sheep, about a bushel^[d] of cooked grain, about 2 quarts^[e] of raisins, and 200 cakes of pressed figs. She put them on donkeys. ¹⁹ Then Abigail told her servants, “Go on. I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband.

²⁰ Abigail rode her donkey down to the other side of the mountain. She met David and his men coming from the other direction.

²¹ David was saying, “I protected Nabal’s property in the desert. I made sure not one of his sheep was missing. I did all that for nothing. I was good to him, but he was rude to me. ²² I swear,^[f] I won’t let even one man in Nabal’s family live until tomorrow morning.”

²³ Just then Abigail arrived. When she saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down with her face to the ground in front of him. ²⁴ Abigail fell at his feet and said, “Sir, please let me talk to you. Listen to what I say. Blame me for what happened. ²⁵ I didn’t see the men you sent. Sir, don’t pay any attention to that worthless man, Nabal. His name means ‘Foolish,’ and that is what he is. ²⁶ The Lord has kept you from killing innocent people. As surely as the Lord lives and you as well, may your enemies and anyone else who wants to harm you be as cursed as Nabal is. ²⁷ Now, I am bringing this gift to you. Please give these things to your men. ²⁸ Please forgive me for doing wrong. I know the Lord will make your family strong because you fight his battles. People will never find anything bad about you as long as you live. ²⁹ If someone chases you to kill you, the Lord your God will save your life. But he will throw away your enemies like a stone from a sling. ³⁰ The Lord promised to do many good things for you, and he will keep his promises. He will make you leader over Israel. ³¹ So don’t do anything that would make you guilty of killing innocent people. Please don’t fall into that trap. Please remember me when the Lord blesses you.”

³² David answered Abigail, “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel. Praise God for sending you to meet me. ³³ God bless you for your good judgment. You kept me from killing innocent people today. ³⁴ As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, if you hadn’t come quickly to meet me, not one man in Nabal’s family would have lived until tomorrow morning. But the Lord prevented me from hurting you.”

³⁵ Then David accepted Abigail’s gifts. He told her, “Go home in peace. I have listened to your request, and I will do what you asked.”

Nabal’s Death

³⁶ Abigail went back to Nabal, who was in the house. He had been eating like a king, and he was drunk and feeling good. So Abigail told Nabal nothing until the next morning. ³⁷ The next morning, Nabal was sober, so his wife told him everything. He had a heart attack and became as stiff as a rock. ³⁸ About ten days later, the Lord gave him a stroke and Nabal died.

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praise the Lord! He judged Nabal to be wrong for insulting me and kept me from doing something wrong. The Lord made Nabal pay for what he did.”

Then David sent a message to Abigail and asked her to be his wife. ⁴⁰ His servants went to Carmel with this message, “David sent us to get you. He wants you to be his wife.”

⁴¹ Abigail bowed her face to the ground. She said, “I am willing to be your slave woman, even if it is only to wash the feet of my master’s servants.”

⁴² Abigail quickly got on a donkey and brought five of her maids with her. They followed David’s messengers. So Abigail became David’s wife. ⁴³ David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel. Both Ahinoam and Abigail were David’s wives. ⁴⁴ David was also married to Saul’s daughter Michal, but Saul had taken her away from him and had given her to a man named Palti, son of Laish. Palti was from the town named Gallim.

Judging Problems Between Believers

6 When one of you has something against someone else in your group, why do you go to the judges in the law courts? The way they think and live is wrong. So why do you let them decide who is right? Why don’t you let God’s holy people decide who is right? ² Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? So if you will judge the world, then surely you can judge small arguments like this. ³ You know that in the future we will judge angels. So surely we can judge life’s ordinary problems. ⁴ So if you have such matters to be judged, why do you take them to those who are not part of the church? They mean nothing to you. ⁵ I say this to shame you. Surely there is someone in your group wise enough to judge a complaint between two believers. ⁶ But now one believer goes to court against another, and you let people who are not believers judge their case!

⁷ The lawsuits that you have against each other show that you are already defeated. It would be better for you to let someone wrong you. It would be better to let someone cheat you. ⁸ But you are the ones doing wrong and cheating. And you do this to your own brothers and sisters in Christ!

^9-10 Surely you know that people who do wrong will not get to enjoy God’s kingdom. Don’t be fooled. These are the people who will not get to enjoy his kingdom: those who sin sexually, those who worship idols, those who commit adultery, men who let other men use them for sex or who have sex with other men, those who steal, those who are greedy, those who drink too much, those who abuse others with insults, and those who cheat. ¹¹ In the past some of you were like that. But you were washed clean, you were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Use Your Bodies for God’s Glory

¹² “I am allowed to do anything,” you say. My answer to this is that not all things are good. Even if it is true that “I am allowed to do anything,” I will not let anything control me like a slave. ¹³ Someone else says, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” Yes, and God will destroy them both. But the body is not for sexual sin. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ And God will raise our bodies from death with the same power he used to raise the Lord Jesus. ¹⁵ Surely you know that your bodies are parts of Christ himself. So I must never take what is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute! ¹⁶ The Scriptures say, “The two people will become one.”^[a] So you should know that anyone who is joined with a prostitute becomes one with her in body. ¹⁷ But anyone who is joined with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

¹⁸ So run away from sexual sin. It involves the body in a way that no other sin does. So if you commit sexual sin, you are sinning against your own body. ¹⁹ You should know that your body is a temple^[b] for the Holy Spirit that you received from God and that lives in you. You don’t own yourselves. ²⁰ God paid a very high price to make you his. So honor God with your body.

Warnings About the Attack of Jerusalem

4 “Son of man,^[a] take a brick and scratch a picture on it. Draw a picture of a city—the city of Jerusalem. ² And then pretend you are an army surrounding the city. Build a dirt wall around the city to help you attack it. Build a dirt road leading up to the city wall. Bring battering rams^[b] and set up army camps around the city. ³ And then take an iron pan and put it between you and the city. It will be like an iron wall separating you and the city. In this way you will show that you are against it. You will surround the city and attack it. This is an example for the family of Israel to show that I will destroy Jerusalem.

⁴ “Then you must lie down on your left side. You must do this thing that shows that you are taking the sins of the people of Israel on yourself. You will carry the guilt for as many days as you lie on your left side. ⁵ You must bear the guilt of Israel for 390 days.^[c] In this way I am telling you how long Israel will be punished; one day equals one year.

⁶ “After that time, you will lie on your right side for 40 days. This time you will bear the guilt of Judah for 40 days. One day equals one year. I am telling you how long Judah must be punished.

⁷ “Now, roll up your sleeve and raise your arm over the brick. Act like you are attacking the city of Jerusalem. Do this to show that you are speaking as my messenger to the people. ⁸ Now look, I am tying ropes on you. You will not be able to roll over from one side to the other until your attack against the city^[d] is finished.

⁹ “You must get some grain to make bread. Get some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. Mix all these things together in one bowl and grind them to make flour. You will use this flour to make bread. You will eat only this bread during the 390 days that you lie on your side. ¹⁰ You will be allowed to use only 1 cup^[e] of that flour each day to make bread. You will eat that bread from time to time throughout the day. ¹¹ You can drink only 3 cups^[f] of water each day. You can drink it from time to time throughout the day. ¹² You must make your bread each day. You must get dry human dung and burn it. Then you must cook the bread over this burning dung. You must eat this bread in front of the people.” ¹³ Then the Lord said, “This will show that the family of Israel will eat unclean bread in foreign countries and that I am the one who forced them to leave Israel and go to those countries!”

¹⁴ Then I said, “Oh, but Lord God, I have never eaten any unclean food. I have never eaten meat from an animal that died from a disease or from an animal that was killed by a wild animal. I have never eaten unclean meat—not from the time that I was a little baby until now. None of that bad meat ever entered my mouth.”

¹⁵ Then God said to me, “Very well, I will let you use dry cow dung to cook your bread. You don’t have to use dry human dung.”

¹⁶ Then God said to me, “Son of man, I am destroying Jerusalem’s supply of bread. People will have only a little bread to eat. They will be very worried about their food supply, and they will have only a little water to drink. Every time they take a drink, they will feel more afraid. ¹⁷ That is because there will not be enough food and water for everyone. They will be terrified as they watch each other wasting away because of their sins.

To the director: A song of David.

To the director: A song of David.