1 Then 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!”

3 But 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.”

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

5 So 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?”

10 Then 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.”

16 So 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.

18 Then 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.”

24 So 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.”

27 But 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?”

28 Jonathan 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.”

30 Then 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?”

33 Then 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.

35 In 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.

37 When 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.

39 But 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.”

41 When 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.

42 And 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.

1 Then 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.”

5 David 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!”

6 So 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.

7 Now 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.

8 Then 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.”

9 The 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.”

10 That 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:

12 Now 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.

14 Then 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?”

1 Now as Jesus was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth, 2and His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God would be displayed in him. 4While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 When Jesus had said this, He spit on the ground, made some mud, and applied it to the man’s eyes. 7Then He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing.

8 At this, his neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging began to ask, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?”

9 Some claimed that he was, but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”

But the man kept saying, “I am the one.”

10“How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

11 He answered, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and anointed my eyes, and He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight.”

12“Where is He?” they asked.

“I do not know,” he answered.

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. 15So the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight.

The man answered, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”

16 Because of this, some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others said, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?”

And there was division among them. 17So once again they asked the man who had been blind, “What do you say about Him, since it was your eyes He opened?”

“He is a prophet,” the man replied.

18 The Jews still did not believe that the man had been blind and had received his sight until they summoned his parents 19and asked, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he can now see?”

20 His parents answered, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. 21But how he can now see or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.”

22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For the Jews had already determined that anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. 23That was why his parents said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”

24 So a second time they called for the man who had been blind and said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”

25 He answered, “Whether He is a sinner I do not know. There is one thing I do know: I was blind, but now I see!”

26“What did He do to you?” they asked. “How did He open your eyes?”

27 He replied, “I already told you, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?”

28 Then they heaped insults on him and said, “You are His disciple; we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this man is from.”

30“That is remarkable indeed!” the man said. “You do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will. 32Never before has anyone heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33If this man were not from God, He could do no such thing.”

34 They replied, “You were born in utter sin, and you are instructing us?” And they threw him out.

35 When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, He found the man and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man ?”

36“Who is He, Sir?” he replied. “Tell me so that I may believe in Him.”

37 “You have already seen Him,” Jesus answered. “He is the One speaking with you.”

38“Lord, I believe,” he said. And he worshiped Jesus.

39 Then Jesus declared, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind may see and those who see may become blind.”

40 Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard this, and they asked Him, “Are we blind too?”

41 “If you were blind,” Jesus replied, “you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”