1 Samuel 22:4

¹In the LORD, I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”?

⁹The LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,

¹³Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim. ¹⁴David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.

¹⁶Some of the children of Benjamin and Judah came to the stronghold to David.

¹²“Don’t call a conspiracy all that this people call a conspiracy. Don’t fear their threats or be terrorized. ¹³The LORD of Armies is who you must respect as holy. He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread. ¹⁴He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a stumbling stone and a rock that makes them fall. For the people of Jerusalem, he will be a trap and a snare.

²⁹Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the history of Samuel the seer, and in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the history of Gad the seer,

¹David was told, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors.”

²Therefore David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go and strike these Philistines?” The LORD said to David, “Go strike the Philistines, and save Keilah.”

³David’s men said to him, “Behold, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”

⁴Then David inquired of the LORD yet again. The LORD answered him, and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.”

⁵David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their livestock, and killed them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

⁶When Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand.

¹¹When David rose up in the morning, the LORD’s word came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying,

¹¹I said, “Should a man like me flee? Who is there that, being such as I, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.”

²³But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next, for most certainly I tell you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man has come.