1. The Ziphites came to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding on the hill of Hakilah opposite Jeshimon?”
2. Then Saul got up and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, and three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph.
3. Now Saul was on the hill of Hakilah, which is opposite Jeshimon by the road, but David was staying in the wilderness. When he realized that Saul had come to the wilderness after him,
4. David sent spies, and he learned that Saul had come for certain.
5. Then David got up and came to the place where Saul had encamped, and David saw the place where Saul was lying down, as well as Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army. (Now Saul was lying in the encampment, and the army was encamping around him.)
6. David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah the brother of Joab, saying, “Who will go down with me to Saul, in the camp?” And Abishai said, “I will go down with you.”
7. So David and Abishai came to the army by night, and there was Saul lying asleep in the encampment with his spear thrust into the ground near his head, and Abner and the army were lying all around him.
8. Then Abishai said to David, “God has handed over your enemy into your hand today! So then, please let me pin him to the ground with the spear one time, and I will not strike him twice.”
9. But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him! For who has stretched out his hand against Yahweh’s anointed one and remained blameless?”
10. And David said, “As Yahweh lives, certainly Yahweh will strike him, or his day will come and he will die, or he will go down in the battle and perish.
11. Yahweh forbid me from stretching out my hand against Yahweh’s anointed one! So then, please take the spear that is near his head and the jar of water, and let us go.”
12. So David took the spear and the jar of water from near Saul’s head, and they went away. No one saw, no one knew, and no one awakened, for all of them were sleeping because a deep sleep of Yahweh had fallen upon them.