Saul defeats the Ammonites
11
📚✭Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and camped against Jabesh-Gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us, and we will serve you”. 2 📚✭And Nahash the Ammonite answered them, “I will make a covenant with you on this condition: that I may gouge out all of your right eyes, and so bring disgrace on all of Israel”.
3 ✭And the elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days’ respite, so that we can send messengers to all the territories of Israel. And then, if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you”.
4 📚✭Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and told the news in the hearing of the people, and all the people raised their voices and wept. 5 📚✭And just then Saul came from the field behind his oxen, and Saul said, “What is wrong with the people that they are weeping?” And they told him the news about the men of Jabesh.
6 📚✭And the Spirit of God came on Saul when he heard that news, and his anger burned greatly. 7 📚And he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territories of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, “So will it be done to the oxen of the one who does not come out after Saul and after Samuel”. And the fear of the LORD✭ fell on the people, and they came out as one man. 8 📚✭And when he counted them in Bezek, the children of Israel were three hundred thousand and the men of Judah thirty thousand.
9 📚And they said to the messengers who had come, “This is what you are to say to the men of Jabesh-Gilead, ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you will have help.’ ” And the messengers came and told this to the men of Jabesh; and they were glad. 10 📚Therefore the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Tomorrow we will come out to you, and you can do with us all that seems good to you”.
11 📚And on the next day this occurred: Saul put the people in three groups, and they came into the middle of the camp in the morning watch✭, and killed the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And it came about that those who remained were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.
12 📚And the people said to Samuel, “Who is the one who said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring the men so we can put them to death”.
13 📚✭And Saul said, “Not a man will be put to death this day, for today the LORD has worked deliverance in Israel”.
14 📚✭Then said Samuel to the people, “Come and let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there”. 15 📚And all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal, and there they offered sacrifices of peace offerings✭ before the LORD, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly✭.