Proverbs 29:12

⁸A king who sits on the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes.

⁵I will silence whoever secretly slanders his neighbor. I won’t tolerate one who is arrogant and conceited. ⁶My eyes will be on the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me. He who walks in a perfect way, he will serve me. ⁷He who practices deceit won’t dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood won’t be established before my eyes.

²Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. ³You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking the truth. Selah. ⁴You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue.

⁸Is that why all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

⁹Then Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, answered and said, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. ¹⁰He inquired of the LORD for him, gave him food, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

¹¹Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were in Nob; and they all came to the king. ¹²Saul said, “Hear now, you son of Ahitub.” He answered, “Here I am, my lord.”

¹³Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread, and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

¹⁴Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, captain of your body guard, and honored in your house? ¹⁵Have I today begun to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me! Don’t let the king impute anything to his servant, nor to all the house of my father; for your servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.”

¹⁶The king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” ¹⁷The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew that he fled and didn’t disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king wouldn’t put out their hand to fall on the priests of the LORD.

¹⁸The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!” Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod.

¹⁹He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword—both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle, donkeys, and sheep, with the edge of the sword. ²⁰One of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. ²¹Abiathar told David that Saul had slain the LORD’s priests.

²²David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of all the persons of your father’s house. ²³Stay with me. Don’t be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. You will be safe with me.”

⁶Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, “If you are on my side, and if you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men who are your master’s sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.” Now the king’s sons, being seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who brought them up.

⁷When the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons and killed them, even seventy people, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezreel.

⁵The sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went out and came at about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth as he took his rest at noon. ⁶They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. ⁷Now when they came into the house as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, killed him, beheaded him, and took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night. ⁸They brought the head of Ishbosheth to David to Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life! The LORD has avenged my lord the king today of Saul and of his offspring.

^9[+] David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity, ¹⁰when someone told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ thinking that he brought good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. ¹¹How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed, should I not now require his blood from your hand, and rid the earth of you?” ¹²David commanded his young men, and they killed them, cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in Abner’s grave in Hebron.

¹¹The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them. ¹²They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. ¹³The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.

⁷Now Saul had a concubine, whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah; and Ishbosheth said to Abner, “Why have you gone in to my father’s concubine?”

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! ⁹God do so to Abner, and more also, if, as the LORD has sworn to David, I don’t do even so to him: ¹⁰to transfer the kingdom from Saul’s house, and to set up David’s throne over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba.”

¹¹He could not answer Abner another word, because he was afraid of him.

¹⁹Then the Ziphites came up to Saul to Gibeah, saying, “Doesn’t David hide himself with us in the strongholds in the woods, in the hill of Hachilah, which is on the south of the desert? ²⁰Now therefore, O king, come down. According to all the desire of your soul to come down; and our part will be to deliver him up into the king’s hand.”

²¹Saul said, “You are blessed by the LORD, for you have had compassion on me. ²²Please go make yet more sure, and know and see his place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there; for I have been told that he is very cunning. ²³See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hides himself; and come again to me with certainty, and I will go with you. It shall happen, if he is in the land, that I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah.”

²³The north wind produces rain; so a backbiting tongue brings an angry face.