Dual Panel1The Philistines engaged Israel in battle, and the Israelites were routed, leaving their dead on Mount Gilboa.
2The Philistines closely pursued Saul and his sons, and Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul, were killed.
3The battle went hard for Saul, and when the archers caught up with him they wounded him severely.
4He said to his armour-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, so that these uncircumcised brutes may not come and taunt me and make sport of me.” But the armour-bearer refused; he dared not do it. Thereupon Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
5When the armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.
6So they died together on that day, Saul, his three sons, and his armour-bearer, as well as all his men.
7When the Israelites in the neighbourhood of the valley and of the Jordan saw that the other Israelites had fled and that Saul and his sons had perished, they fled likewise, abandoning their towns; and the Philistines moved in and occupied them.
8Next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons lying dead on Mount Gilboa.
9They cut off his head and stripped him of his armour; then they sent messengers through the length and breadth of their land to carry the good news to idols and people alike.
10They deposited his armour in the temple of Ashtoreth and nailed his body on the wall of Beth-shan.
11When the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
12all the warriors among them set out and journeyed through the night to recover the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They brought them back to Jabesh and burned them;
13they took the bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and for seven days they fasted.