1 Samuel 17 — FBV
17Verse 1The Philistine armies gathered for battle at Socoh in Judah. They set up camp between Socoh and Azekah in Ephes-dammim.Verse 2Saul and the Israelites gathered and camped in the Valley of Elah and took up their positions to engage in battle with the Philistines.Verse 3The Philistines were on one hill and the Israelites on another with the valley between them.Verse 4Then a champion+came out of the Philistine camp. His name was Goliath from Gath, and he was six cubits and a span tall.+Verse 5He had on his head a bronze helmet and he wore a bronze coat of mail weighing five thousand shekels.Verse 6On his legs he wore bronze armor, and he carried a javelin+slung between his shoulders.Verse 7The shaft of his spear was as thick as weaver's beam, with an iron tip that weighed six hundred shekels. His shield-bearer walked ahead of him carrying his shield.+Verse 8Goliath stood and shouted at the lines of Israelite soldiers, “Why have you come and lined for battle? I am the Philistine, and you're Saul's servants. Pick one of your men and have him come down and fight me.Verse 9If he can fight me and kill me, then we will be your slaves. But if I beat him and kill him, then you'll be our slaves and work for us.”Verse 10Then the Philistine said, “I mock the battle lines of Israel today! Give me a man so we can fight each other!”Verse 11Saul and all the Israelite soldiers were shattered and absolutely terrified when they heard what the Philistine said.Verse 12David was the son of a man named Jesse. He was an Ephrathite from Bethlehem of Judah who had eight sons. At the time Saul was king, Jesse was very old.Verse 13Jesse's three oldest sons had joined Saul's army. These were Eliab (the firstborn), Abinadab (second), and Shammah (third).Verse 14David was the youngest. The three oldest were with Saul,Verse 15while David went to Saul and then back again to look after his father's sheep.Verse 16Every morning and evening for forty days the Philistine came out to take his stand.Verse 17Jesse told his son David, “Please take your brothers this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers. Take them quickly to your brothers' camp.Verse 18Take these ten cheese pieces to their commander. Check carefully to see how your brothers are doing and bring back their news.”Verse 19They were with Saul and the whole Israelite army in the Valley of Elah, fighting the Philistines.Verse 20David got up early in the morning and left the flock with a shepherd. He took the supplies and set out as Jesse had told him to. He arrived at the camp just as the army was marching out to its battle line, shouting the war cry.Verse 21The Israelites took up their battle line and the Philistines took up their battle line on the opposite side.Verse 22David left his supplies with the one responsible and ran to the battle line. When he got there he asked his brothers how they were.Verse 23While he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, came up out of his lines and shouted his challenge as he had before, and David heard what he said.Verse 24All the Israelite soldiers ran away when they saw him because they were terribly afraid.Verse 25“Have you seen this man who keeps on coming out to mock Israel?” they asked. “The king will make the man who kills him really rich. He will also give him his daughter in marriage, and his family will live tax-free in Israel.”Verse 26David asked the men who were standing beside him, “What will the man receive who kills this Philistine and removes this shame from Israel? Who does this heathen+Philistine think he is, mocking the armies of the living God?”Verse 27The soldiers repeated what they had said, telling him, “This is what the man who kills him will receive.”Verse 28When David's oldest brother Eliab heard him talking with the men, he got angry with him. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Whom have you left those few sheep with in the wilderness? I know how proud and wicked you are! You've just come to watch the battle!”Verse 29“What have I done now?” David asked. “Can't I even ask a question?”Verse 30He went over to some others and asked the same question, and they gave the same answer as before.Verse 31Someone overheard what David said and reported it to Saul who sent for him.Verse 32David told Saul, “No one should lose heart because of this Philistine. I, your servant, will go and fight him!”Verse 33“You can't go out and fight this Philistine,” Saul replied. “You're just a boy, and he's a warrior trained from his youth.”Verse 34David replied, “Your servant has been looking after his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock,Verse 35I would chase after it, knock it down, and save the lamb from its mouth. If it turned to attack me, I would grab its hair, hit it, and kill it.Verse 36I have killed lions and bears, and this heathen Philistine will be just like one of them, for he has mocked the armies of the living God.”Verse 37David concluded, “The Lord who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine.” “Go, and may the Lord be with you,” Saul responded.Verse 38Saul gave David his own battle clothes to wear, placed a bronze helmet on his head, and put armor on him.Verse 39David strapped his sword on over the armor but he couldn't walk because he wasn't used to it. “I can't walk in all this,” David told Saul. “I'm not used to it.” So David took all the armor off.Verse 40He picked up his stick, chose five smooth stones from the stream, and put them in his shepherd's bag. Carrying his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine.Verse 41The Philistine came towards David, closer and closer, with his shield-bearer in front of him.Verse 42When the Philistine looked closely he could see that David was just a red-faced handsome youth, and so he treated David with contempt.Verse 43“Do you think I'm a dog, coming to fight me with a stick?” the Philistine asked David, and he cursed David by his gods.Verse 44Then the Philistine shouted at David, “Come over here, and I'll feed your flesh to the birds and the wild animals.”Verse 45David replied to the Philistine, “You come to attack me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin. But I come to attack you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel—the one you have mocked.Verse 46Today the Lord will hand you over to me, and I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the dead bodies of the Philistine soldiers to the birds and the wild animals. Then all the world will know that there is a God who acts for Israel.Verse 47Everyone gathered here will realize that the Lord saves, but not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will hand all of you over to us.”Verse 48As the Philistine moved forward to attack him, David raced toward the battle line to confront him.Verse 49David reached into his bag, took out a stone, and fired it from his sling, hitting the Philistine on the forehead. The stone went into his forehead, and he collapsed facedown on the ground.Verse 50This is how David defeated the Philistine with just a sling and a stone; with no sword in his hand David knocked the Philistine down and killed him.Verse 51David ran and stood over the Philistine. He took the Philistine's sword and pulled it out of its sheath. He killed him and then he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they turned and ran away.Verse 52Then the men of Israel and Judah rushed forward shouting the war cry and chased the Philistines all the way to Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their bodies were scattered along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.Verse 53When the Israelites returned from their hot pursuit of the Philistines, they plundered their camps.Verse 54David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put the Philistine's weapons in his own tent.Verse 55When Saul had watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he'd asked Abner the army commander, “Abner, whose son is that young man?” “On your life, Your Majesty, I do not know,” Abner replied.Verse 56“Find out whose son this young man is,” the king ordered.Verse 57As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. David was still clutching the Philistine's head in his hand.Verse 58“Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked. “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem,” David replied.