1 Samuel 31

Saul and his sons fall on Mount Gilboa

¹Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel. The men of Israel fled from the Philistines, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa. ²The Philistines caught up with Saul and his sons, and they killed Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua, Saul’s sons. ³The fighting pressed hard against Saul. The archers found him with their bows, and he was badly wounded by them.^{a 4}Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through and make sport of me.” But his armor-bearer would not do it, because he was terrified. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it. ⁵Seeing that Saul was dead, his armor-bearer also fell on his own sword, and he died with him. ⁶So Saul died, with his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men, together on that same day. ⁷When the men of Israel on the other side of the valley and beyond the Jordan saw that Israel’s army had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their towns and fled. Then the Philistines came and settled in them.^b

The men of Jabesh-gilead honor Saul

⁸On the next day the Philistines came to strip the dead, and they found Saul and his three sons lying where they had fallen on Mount Gilboa. ⁹They cut off Saul’s head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the temples of their idols and to the people.^{c 10}They placed his armor in the temple of the Ashtaroth and fastened his body on the wall of Beth-shan. ¹¹The people living in Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. ¹²All their brave men set out and traveled all night. They took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons down from the wall of Beth-shan, brought them to Jabesh, and burned them there.^{d 13}Then they took their bones and buried them beneath the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and they fasted for seven days.