1 Samuel 25:18-27 ▼

18 Abigail hurried, taking two hundred loaves of bread, two clay jars of wine, five butchered sheep, a bushel of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.

19 Then she said to her male servants, “Go ahead of me. I will be right behind you.” But she did not tell her husband, Nabal.

20 As she rode the donkey down a mountain pass hidden from view, she saw David and his men coming toward her and met them.

21 David had just said, “I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the wilderness for nothing. He was not missing anything, yet he paid me back evil for good.

22 May God punish me and do so severely if I let any of his males survive until morning.”

23 When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off the donkey and knelt down with her face to the ground and paid homage to David.

24 She knelt at his feet and said, “The guilt is mine, my lord, but please let your servant speak to you directly. Listen to the words of your servant.

25 My lord should pay no attention to this worthless fool Nabal, for he lives up to his name: His name means ‘stupid,’ and stupidity is all he knows. I, your servant, didn’t see my lord’s young men whom you sent.

26 Now my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live— it is the LORD who kept you from participating in bloodshed and avenging yourself by your own hand—may your enemies and those who intend to harm my lord be like Nabal.

27 Let this gift your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.