1 Samuel 31 WEB
Summary: The Philistines engage Israel in battle at Mount Gilboa, and the Israelite army is routed, with many men, including Saul's sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, killed in the fighting. Saul himself is critically wounded by archers, and rather than risk capture and abuse by the Philistines, he asks his armor-bearer to kill him; when the armor-bearer refuses out of fear, Saul falls on his own sword, and the armor-bearer follows him in death. The Philistines find Saul's body the next day, behead him, display his armor in the temple of Ashtoreth, and fasten his body to the wall of Beth-shan, but the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead, remembering Saul's earlier rescue of their city, travel through the night to recover the bodies of Saul and his sons, burn and bury their bones under a tamarisk tree, and fast seven days in mourning.
1Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa.
2The Philistines overtook Saul and on his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.
3The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers.
4Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me!” But his armor bearer would not; for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell on it.
5When his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword, and died with him.
6So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor bearer, and all his men, that same day together.
7When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.
8On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.
9They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols, and to the people.
10They put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
11When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
12all the valiant men arose, went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan; and they came to Jabesh, and burned them there.
13They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
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