2 Samuel 21:1-9 ▼

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.