Daily Bread

¹⁴ One of the servants told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the wilderness to give our master his greetings,^(A) but he hurled insults at them. ¹⁵ Yet these men were very good to us. They did not mistreat^(B) us, and the whole time we were out in the fields near them nothing was missing.^{(C) 16} Night and day they were a wall^(D) around us the whole time we were herding our sheep near them. ¹⁷ Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household. He is such a wicked^(E) man that no one can talk to him.”

¹⁸ Abigail acted quickly. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs^[a] of roasted grain,^(F) a hundred cakes of raisins^(G) and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.^{(H) 19} Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead;^(I) I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell^(J) her husband Nabal.

²⁰ As she came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, there were David and his men descending toward her, and she met them. ²¹ David had just said, “It’s been useless—all my watching over this fellow’s property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing.^(K) He has paid^(L) me back evil^(M) for good. ²² May God deal with David,^[b] be it ever so severely,^(N) if by morning I leave alive one male^(O) of all who belong to him!”

²³ When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.^{(P) 24} She fell at his feet and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord,^(Q) and let me speak to you; hear what your servant has to say. ²⁵ Please pay no attention, my lord, to that wicked man Nabal. He is just like his name—his name means Fool^(R),^(S) and folly goes with him. And as for me, your servant, I did not see the men my lord sent. ²⁶ And now, my lord, as surely as the Lord your God lives and as you live, since the Lord has kept you from bloodshed^(T) and from avenging^(U) yourself with your own hands, may your enemies and all who are intent on harming my lord be like Nabal.^{(V) 27} And let this gift,^(W) which your servant has brought to my lord, be given to the men who follow you.

²⁸ “Please forgive^(X) your servant’s presumption. The Lord your God will certainly make a lasting^(Y) dynasty for my lord, because you fight the Lord’s battles,^(Z) and no wrongdoing^(AA) will be found in you as long as you live. ²⁹ Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life,^(AB) the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God, but the lives of your enemies he will hurl^(AC) away as from the pocket of a sling.^{(AD) 30} When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler^(AE) over Israel, ³¹ my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself. And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember^(AF) your servant.”^(AG)