1 Samuel 25:18-31

¹⁸Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine, and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain, and a hundred cakes of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and she loaded them on donkeys. ¹⁹Then she said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me; behold, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰And it happened as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by the hidden part of the mountain, that behold, David and his men were coming down toward her; so she met them. ²¹Now David had said, “It is certainly for nothing that I have guarded everything that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing has gone missing of all that belonged to him! For he has returned me evil for good. ²²May God do so to the enemies of David, and more so, if by morning I leave alive as much as one male of any who belong to him.”

²³When Abigail saw David, she hurried and dismounted from her donkey, and fell on her face in front of David and bowed herself to the ground. ²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the blame. And please let your slave speak to you, and listen to the words of your slave. ²⁵Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and stupidity is with him; but I your slave did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.

²⁶“Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, since the Lord has restrained you from shedding blood, and from avenging yourself by your own hand, now then, may your enemies and those who seek evil against my lord, be like Nabal. ²⁷And now let this gift which your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who accompany my lord. ²⁸Please forgive the offense of your slave; for the Lord will certainly make for my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil will not be found in you all your days. ²⁹Should anyone rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, then the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God; but the lives of your enemies He will sling out as from the hollow of a sling. ³⁰And when the Lord does for my lord in accordance with all the good that He has spoken concerning you, and appoints you ruler over Israel, ³¹this will not become an obstacle to you, or a troubled heart to my lord, both by having shed blood without cause and by my lord’s having avenged himself. When the Lord deals well with my lord, then remember your slave.”