2 Samuel 16:9

²⁸“You shall not blaspheme God, nor curse a ruler of your people.

⁸He bowed down, and said, “What is your servant, that you should look at such a dead dog as I am?”

¹⁴Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A flea?

⁸Then Abner was very angry about Ishbosheth’s words, and said, “Am I a dog’s head that belongs to Judah? Today I show kindness to your father Saul’s house, to his brothers, and to his friends, and have not delivered you into the hand of David; and yet you charge me today with a fault concerning this woman!

⁵Paul said, “I didn’t know, brothers, that he was high priest. For it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

¹⁷Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

³⁰(I have certainly not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse); ³¹if the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?’

³⁰So Joab and Abishai his brother killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.

¹³Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, ¹⁴and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?” But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam didn’t believe them.

¹⁵Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?”

¹⁶But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, “You shall not do this thing, for you speak falsely of Ishmael.”

⁶Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying, “Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?” Abishai said, “I will go down with you.”

⁷So David and Abishai came to the people by night; and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay around him. ⁸Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered up your enemy into your hand today. Now therefore please let me strike him with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time.”

⁹David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless?” ¹⁰David said, “As the LORD lives, the LORD will strike him; or his day shall come to die, or he shall go down into battle and perish. ¹¹The LORD forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the LORD’s anointed; but now please take the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let’s go.”