One Year Bible.

Jonathan Helps David

¹Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah. He came to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my iniquity? How have I sinned against your father, that he wants to take my life?”

²“Far from it!” Jonathan replied. “You will not die. Indeed, my father does nothing, great or small, without telling me. So why would he hide this matter from me? This cannot be true!”

³But David again vowed, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or he will be grieved.’ As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”

⁴Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you desire, I will do for you.”

⁵So David told him, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon, and I am supposed to dine with the king. Instead, let me go and hide in the field until the third evening from now. ⁶If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David urgently requested my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because there is an annual sacrifice for his whole clan.’ ⁷If he says, ‘Good,’ then your servant is safe, but if he is enraged, you will know he has evil intentions. ⁸Therefore show kindness to your servant, for you have brought me into a covenant with you before the LORD. If there is iniquity in me, then kill me yourself; why should you bring me to your father?”

⁹“Never!” Jonathan replied. “If I ever found out that my father had evil intentions against you, would I not tell you?”

Jonathan and David Renew Their Covenant

¹⁰Then David asked Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

¹¹“Come,” he replied, “let us go out to the field.”

So the two of them went out into the field, ¹²and Jonathan said, “By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will sound out my father by this time tomorrow or the next day. If he is favorable toward you, will I not send for you and tell you? ¹³But if my father intends to bring evil on you, then may the LORD punish me, and ever so severely, if I do not tell you and send you on your way in safety. May the LORD be with you, just as He has been with my father. ¹⁴And as long as I live, treat me with the LORD’s loving devotion, that I may not die, ¹⁵and do not ever cut off your loving devotion from my household— not even when the LORD cuts off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”

¹⁶So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD hold David’s enemies accountable.” ¹⁷And Jonathan had David reaffirm his vow out of love for him, for Jonathan loved David as he loved himself.

¹⁸Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon, and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty. ¹⁹When you have stayed three days, hurry down to the place you hid on the day this trouble began, and remain beside the stone Ezel. ²⁰I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as if I were aiming at a target. ²¹Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows!’ Now, if I expressly say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them,’ then come, because as surely as the LORD lives, it is safe for you, and there is no danger. ²²But if I say to the young man, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, for the LORD has sent you away. ²³And as for the matter you and I have discussed, the LORD is a witness between you and me forever.”

²⁴So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon had come, the king sat down to eat. ²⁵He sat in his usual place by the wall, opposite Jonathan and beside Abner, but David’s place was empty. ²⁶Saul said nothing that day because he thought, “Something has happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean— surely he is unclean.”

²⁷But on the day after the New Moon, the second day, David’s place was still empty, and Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?”

²⁸Jonathan answered, “David urgently requested my permission to go to Bethlehem, ²⁹saying, ‘Please let me go, because our clan is holding a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has told me to be there. So now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please let me go and see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.”

Saul Seeks to Kill Jonathan

³⁰Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? ³¹For as long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Now send for him and bring him to me, for he must surely die!”

³²“Why must he be put to death?” Jonathan replied. “What has he done?”

³³Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan to kill him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to kill David. ³⁴Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger and did not eat any food that second day of the month, for he was grieved by his father’s shameful treatment of David.

³⁵In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for the appointment with David, and a small boy was with him. ³⁶He said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” And as the boy ran, Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.

³⁷When the boy reached the place where Jonathan’s arrow had fallen, Jonathan called to him, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?” ³⁸Then Jonathan cried out, “Hurry! Make haste! Do not delay!” So the boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master.

³⁹But the boy did not know anything; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement. ⁴⁰Then Jonathan gave his equipment to the boy and said, “Go, take it back to the city.”

⁴¹When the young man had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone, fell facedown, and bowed three times. Then he and Jonathan kissed each other and wept together — though David wept more.

⁴²And Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for the two of us have sworn in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘May the LORD be a witness between you and me, and between your descendants and mine forever.’” Then David got up and departed, and Jonathan went back into the city.

David Takes the Consecrated Bread

¹Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”

²“The king has given me a mission,” David replied. “He told me no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you. And I have directed my young men to meet me at a certain place. ³Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.”

⁴“There is no common bread on hand,” the priest replied, “but there is some consecrated bread — provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”

⁵David answered, “Women have indeed been kept from us, as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”

⁶So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.

⁷Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.

David Flees to Gath

⁸Then David asked Ahimelech, “Is there not a spear or sword on hand here? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s mission was urgent.”

⁹The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want, you may take it. For there is no other but this one here.”

And David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”

¹⁰That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. ¹¹But the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing about him in their dances, saying:

‘Saul has slain his thousands,

and David his tens of thousands’?”

¹²Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³So he changed his behavior before them and feigned madness in their hands; he scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down his beard.

¹⁴Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you can see that the man is insane! Why have you brought him to me? ¹⁵Am I in need of madmen, that you have brought this man to rave in my presence? Must this man come into my house?”

Paul’s Defense to the Crowd

¹“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you.” ²When they heard him speak to them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet.

Then Paul declared, ³“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but raised in this city. I was educated at the feet of Gamaliel in strict conformity to the law of our fathers. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

⁴I persecuted this Way even to the death, detaining both men and women and throwing them into prison, ⁵as the high priest and the whole Council can testify about me. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and I was on my way to apprehend these people and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished.

⁶About noon as I was approaching Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. ⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’

⁸‘Who are You, Lord?’ I asked.

‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ He replied. ⁹My companions saw the light, but they could not understand the voice of the One speaking to me.

¹⁰Then I asked, ‘What should I do, Lord?’

‘Get up and go into Damascus,’ He told me. ‘There you will be told all that you have been appointed to do.’

¹¹Because the brilliance of the light had blinded me, my companions led me by the hand into Damascus. ¹²There a man named Ananias, a devout observer of the law who was highly regarded by all the Jews living there, ¹³came and stood beside me. ‘Brother Saul,’ he said, ‘receive your sight.’ And at that moment I could see him.

¹⁴Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear His voice. ¹⁵You will be His witness to everyone of what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away, calling on His name.’

¹⁷Later, when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance ¹⁸and saw the Lord saying to me, ‘Hurry! Leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept your testimony about Me.’

¹⁹‘Lord,’ I answered, ‘they know very well that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in You. ²⁰And when the blood of Your witness Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’

²¹Then He said to me, ‘Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

Paul the Roman Citizen

²²The crowd listened to Paul until he made this statement. Then they lifted up their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!”

²³As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, ²⁴the commander ordered that Paul be brought into the barracks. He directed that Paul be flogged and interrogated to determine the reason for this outcry against him.

²⁵But as they stretched him out to strap him down, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it lawful for you to flog a Roman citizen without a trial?”

²⁶On hearing this, the centurion went and reported it to the commander. “What are you going to do?” he said. “This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes,” he answered.

²⁸“I paid a high price for my citizenship,” said the commander.

“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.

²⁹At once those who were about to interrogate Paul stepped back, and the commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put a Roman citizen in chains.

³⁰The next day the commander, wanting to learn the real reason Paul was accused by the Jews, released him and ordered the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul down and had him stand before them.

Paul before the Sanhedrin

¹Paul looked directly at the Sanhedrin and said, “Brothers, I have conducted myself before God in all good conscience to this day.”

²At this, the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth.

³Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit here to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck.”

⁴But those standing nearby said, “How dare you insult the high priest of God!”

⁵“Brothers,” Paul replied, “I was not aware that he was the high priest, for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.’”

⁶Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. It is because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”

⁷As soon as he had said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. ⁸For the Sadducees say that there is neither a resurrection nor angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

⁹A great clamor arose, and some scribes from the party of the Pharisees got up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” ¹⁰The dispute grew so violent that the commander was afraid they would tear Paul to pieces. He ordered the soldiers to go down and remove him by force and bring him into the barracks.

¹¹The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about Me in Jerusalem, so also you must testify in Rome.”

The Plot to Kill Paul

¹²When daylight came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. ¹³More than forty of them were involved in this plot. ¹⁴They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves with a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul. ¹⁵Now then, you and the Sanhedrin petition the commander to bring him down to you on the pretext of examining his case more carefully. We are ready to kill him on the way.”

¹⁶But when the son of Paul’s sister heard about the plot, he went into the barracks and told Paul. ¹⁷Then Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander; he has something to tell him.”

¹⁸So the centurion took him to the commander and said, “Paul the prisoner sent and asked me to bring this young man to you. He has something to tell you.”

¹⁹The commander took the young man by the hand, drew him aside, and asked, “What do you need to tell me?”

²⁰He answered, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul to the Sanhedrin tomorrow on the pretext of acquiring more information about him. ²¹Do not let them persuade you, because more than forty men are waiting to ambush him. They have bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him; they are ready now, awaiting your consent.”

²²So the commander dismissed the young man and instructed him, “Do not tell anyone that you have reported this to me.”

Paul Sent to Felix

²³Then he called two of his centurions and said, “Prepare two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea in the third hour of the night. ²⁴Provide mounts for Paul to take him safely to Governor Felix.” ²⁵And he wrote the following letter:

²⁶Claudius Lysias,

To His Excellency, Governor Felix:

Greetings.

²⁷This man was seized by the Jews, and they were about to kill him when I came with my troops to rescue him. For I had learned that he is a Roman citizen, ²⁸and since I wanted to understand their charges against him, I brought him down to their Sanhedrin. ²⁹I found that the accusation involved questions about their own law, but there was no charge worthy of death or imprisonment.

³⁰When I was informed that there was a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once. I also instructed his accusers to present their case against him before you.

³¹So the soldiers followed their orders and brought Paul by night to Antipatris. ³²The next day they returned to the barracks and let the horsemen go on with him. ³³When the horsemen arrived in Caesarea, they delivered the letter to the governor and presented Paul to him.

³⁴The governor read the letter and asked what province Paul was from. Learning that he was from Cilicia, ³⁵he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s Praetorium.