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but they had killed 360 of the Benjaminites and Abner’s men.

Abner was very angry about Ish-bosheth’s accusation. “Am I a dog’s head who belongs to Judah?” he asked. “All this time I’ve been loyal to the family of your father Saul, to his brothers, and to his friends and haven’t betrayed you to David, but now you accuse me of wrongdoing with this woman!

Then Joab left David and sent messengers after Abner. They brought him back from the well of Sirah, but David was unaware of it.

Then they came to urge David to eat food while it was still day, but David took an oath: “May God punish me and do so severely if I taste bread or anything else before sunset!”

Saul’s son Jonathan had a son whose feet were crippled. He was five years old when the report about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nanny picked him up and fled, but as she was hurrying to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, the one who has redeemed my life from every distress,

when the person told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ he thought he was a bearer of good news, but I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was my reward to him for his news!

So David gave orders to the young men, and they killed Rechab and Baanah. They cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies by the pool in Hebron, but they took Ish-bosheth’s head and buried it in Abner’s tomb in Hebron.

When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, they all went in search of David, but he heard about it and went down to the stronghold.

So David inquired of the Lord, and he answered, “Do not attack directly, but circle around behind them and come at them opposite the balsam trees.

But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan:

But my faithful love will never leave him as it did when I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.

You, your sons, and your servants are to work the ground for him, and you are to bring in the crops so your master’s grandson will have food to eat. But Mephibosheth, your master’s grandson, is always to eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

But the Arameans fled before Israel, and David killed seven hundred of their charioteers and forty thousand foot soldiers. He also struck down Shobach commander of their army, who died there.

In the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem.

But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house.

Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. He went out in the evening to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home.

The messenger reported to David, “The men gained the advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we counterattacked right up to the entrance of the city gate.

but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised her, and she grew up with him and with his children. From his meager food she would eat, from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would sleep. She was like a daughter to him.

Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.