thy servants, and they will tell thee. Now therefore let thy
servants find favour in thy eyes: for we are come in a good day,
whatsoever thy hand shall find give to thy servants, and to thy son
David.

25:9. And when David's servants came, they spoke to Nabal all these
words in David's name, and then held their peace.

25:10. But Nabal answering the servants of David, said: Who is David?
and what is the son of Isai? servants are multiplied now days who flee
from their masters.

25:11. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and the flesh of my
cattle, which I have killed for my shearers, and give to men whom I know
not whence they are?

25:12. So the servants of David went back their way, and returning came
and told him all the words that he said.

25:13. Then David said to his young men: Let every man gird on his
sword. And they girded on every man his sword. And David also girded on
his sword: and there followed David about four hundred men, and two
hundred remained with the baggage.

25:14. But one of the servants told, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, saying:
Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness, to salute our
master: and he rejected them.

25:15. These men were very good to us, and gave us no trouble: Neither
did we ever lose any thing all the time that we conversed with them in
the desert.

25:16. They were a wall unto us, both by night and day, all the while we
were with them keeping the sheep.

25:17. Wherefore consider, and think what thou hast to do: for evil is
determined against thy husband, and against thy house, and he is a son
of Belial, so that no man can speak to him.

25:18. Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves, and two
vessels of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of
parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes
of dry figs, and laid them upon asses:

25:19. And she said to her servants: Go before me: behold, I will follow
after you: but she told not her husband, Nabal.

25:20. And when she had gotten upon an ass, and was coming down to the
foot of the mountain, David and his men came down over against her, and
she met them.

25:21. And David said: Truly in vain have I kept all that belonged to
this fellow in the wilderness, and nothing was lost of all that
pertained unto him: and he hath returned me evil for good.

25:22. May God do so and so, and add more to the foes of David, if I
leave of all that belong to