2 Samuel 21:1-11 ▼

1 THEN there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered. It is because of Saul and because of his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

2 So the king called the Gibeonites and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal to cause the children of Israel and Judah to sin),

3 Wherefore David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make an atonement to you, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?

4 And the Gibeonites said to him, It is not silver and gold that Saul and his house owe us; neither do we wish to kill any one in Israel. And he said to them, Whatever you shall say, that will I do for you.

5 And they said to the king, The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us so that we should not remain in all the territory of Israel,

6 Let seven of his sons be delivered to us, and we will sacrifice them before the LORD in Gibeah of Saul. And the king said, I will give them.

7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the LORD'S oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Ana, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Nadab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Azriel, the son of Barzillai the Meholathite;

9 And he delivered them to the Gibeonites, and they sacrificed them in the mountain before the LORD; and they fell all seven together, and were slain in the first days of harvest, in the beginning of barley harvest.

10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aria took sackcloth and spread it under her upon the rock, from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped upon them from the heaven, and she did not let the birds of the air rest upon the bodies by day nor the wild beasts of the field by night.

11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Ana, the concubine of Saul, had done.