1 Samuel 25:17-35

Now consider carefully  what you should do, because there is certain to be trouble for our master and his entire family. He is such a worthless fool nobody can talk to him! ” Abigail hurried, taking two hundred loaves of bread, two clay jars of wine, five butchered sheep, a bushel  of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and loaded them on donkeys.  Then she said to her male servants, “Go ahead of me. I will be right behind you.”  But she did not tell her husband, Nabal. As she rode the donkey down a mountain pass hidden from view, she saw David and his men coming toward her and met them. David had just said, “I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the wilderness for nothing. He was not missing anything, yet he paid me back evil for good. May God punish me  and do so severely  if I let any of his males  survive until morning.”  When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off the donkey and knelt down with her face to the ground and paid homage to David.  She knelt at his feet and said, “The guilt is mine, my lord, but please let your servant speak to you directly. Listen to the words of your servant. My lord should pay no attention to this worthless fool Nabal, for he lives up to his name:  His name means ‘stupid,’ and stupidity is all he knows.  I, your servant, didn’t see my lord’s young men whom you sent. Now my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live — it is the LORD who kept you from participating in bloodshed and avenging yourself  by your own hand—may your enemies and those who intend to harm my lord be like Nabal.  Let this gift  your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. Please forgive your servant’s offense,  for the LORD is certain to make a lasting dynasty for my lord  because he fights the LORD’s battles.  Throughout your life, may evil  not be found in you.  “Someone is pursuing you and intends to take your life. My lord’s life is tucked safely in the place  where the LORD your God protects the living, but he is flinging away your enemies’ lives like stones from a sling.  When the LORD does for my lord all the good he promised you and appoints you ruler over Israel,  there will not be remorse or a troubled conscience for my lord because of needless bloodshed or my lord’s revenge. And when the LORD does good things for my lord, may you remember me your servant.”  Then David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel,  who sent you to meet me today! May your discernment be blessed, and may you be blessed. Today you kept me from participating in bloodshed and avenging myself by my own hand.  Otherwise, as surely as the LORD God of Israel lives, who prevented me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, Nabal wouldn’t have had any males  left by morning light.” Then David accepted what she had brought him and said, “Go home in peace.  See, I have heard what you said and have granted your request.”