1 Samuel 30:1-13 ▼

1 Then it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had made a raid on the Negev and on Ziklag and had struck Ziklag and burned it with fire;

2 and they took captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great—they did not put anyone to death—and carried them off and went their way.

3 Then David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive.

4 So David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep.

5 Now David’s two wives had been taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite.

6 Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people said to stone him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God.

7 Then David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Please bring the ephod near to me.” So Abiathar brought the ephod near to David.

8 And David asked of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I pursue this band? Shall I overtake them?” And He said to him, “Pursue, for you will surely overtake them, and you will surely deliver all.”

9 So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him, and they came to the brook Besor, where those left behind remained.

10 But David pursued, he and four hundred men, for two hundred who were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor remained behind.

11 Then they found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David and gave him bread, and he ate, and they provided him water to drink.

12 And they gave him a piece of fig cake and two clusters of raisins, and he ate; then his spirit revived. For he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.

13 And David said to him, “To whom do you belong? And where are you from?” And he said, “I am a young man of Egypt, a slave of an Amalekite; and my master forsook me when I fell sick three days ago.