1 Samuel 11

₁King Nahash and his Ammonite soldiers put up their tents at the town of Jabesh-Gilead and they besieged the people of that town. The leaders of the people of Jabesh said to Nahash: ‘If you make an agreement with us, then we will serve you.’

₂Nahash the Ammonite said to them: ‘I will make an agreement with you if I can first take out the right eye of every person in your town, because I want to bring shame on all the Israelites.’

₃The leaders of the people of Jabesh said to Nahash: ‘Give us 7 days so that we can send messengers to all the people in Israel. If no one wants to save us, then we will come to you and make an agreement.’

₄When the messengers came into the town of Gibeah, the town where Saul lived, they told the people what was happening at Jabesh. All the people cried loudly. ₅At that time Saul came back from the field with his oxen and he asked: ‘Why are the people crying?’ They told him what the men of Jabesh had said.

₆When they told this to Saul, the Spirit of God came into him and he was very angry. ₇He took 2 oxen and he cut them into pieces. He sent the pieces with messengers to all the places in the land_of_Israel. He told the messengers to tell the people: ‘You must all come out to Saul and Samuel. If someone does not come, then we will cut up all his oxen like this.’

All the people were afraid and they all came out together. ₈Saul said they must all come together at the town of Bezek and he counted them. There were 300 000 men of Israel and 30 000 men of Judah. ₉Saul told the messengers to go back to Jabesh. He said: ‘Tell the people of Jabesh-Gilead that we will come and save them tomorrow when the sun is hot.’

When the messengers told this to the people of Jabesh-Gilead, they were very happy ₁₀and they said to the Ammonites: ‘Tomorrow we will come to you, and then you can do what you want with us.’

₁₁The next morning Saul divided his men into 3 groups. They came early in the morning and they attacked the Ammonites. They kept on fighting until it was very hot in the afternoon and they followed_and_chased the other Ammonites. There were not 2 of them who stayed together.

₁₂The men then said to Samuel: ‘Who were the people who said that Saul must not be their king? Bring those men. We want to kill them.’ ₁₃But Saul said: ‘We will not kill anyone today because today the Lord saved Israel.’ ₁₄Then Samuel said to the people: ‘Let us go to the town of Gilgal and make Saul king again.’

₁₅All the people went to Gilgal and they made Saul king again at the tent of the Lord. They sacrificed meal-offerings to the Lord and Saul and all the men of Israel were very happy.