CHAPTER 10

¹And the Philistines battled against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and they fell slain on Mount Gilboa. ²And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and his sons, and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchi-Shua, the sons of Saul. ³And the battle went heavy against Saul, and the archers, with the bow, found him, and he quaked in fear of the archers. ⁴And Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me.” But the armor bearer did not want to do it because he was very frightened. ⁵And Saul took the sword and fell upon it. ⁶And Saul died, and his three sons and all his house together died. 7And all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that [the men of Israel] had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, and they abandoned their towns and fled, and the Philistines came and occupied them. ⁸And it happened the next day that the Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. ⁹And they stripped him and bore off his head and his armor, and they sent throughout the Philistine country to bring the tidings to their idols and to the people. ¹⁰And they put his armor in the house of their god, and his skull they impaled in the house of Dagon. ¹¹And all [the inhabitants] of Jabesh-Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. ¹²And every valiant man arose, and they bore off Saul’s corpse and the corpses of his sons and brought them to Jabesh and buried their bones beneath the tamarisk in Jabesh, and they fasted seven days. ¹³And Saul died for his betrayal that he had committed against the LORD, for the word of the LORD that he did not keep, and he had inquired, too, of a ghost. ¹⁴And he did not seek the LORD, and He put him to death and brought round the kingship to David son of Jesse.