13. Then David said to him, “To whom do you belong, and from where are you? The young man said, “I am an Egyptian young man, a servant of an Amalekite man, but my master abandoned me because I became ill three days ago.
14. We raided the Negev of the Kerethites and that which belongs to Judah and then the Negev of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag with fire.”
15. So David asked him, “Will you take me down to this band of raiders?” He said, “Swear to me by God that you will not kill me and that you will not deliver me into my master’s hand! Then I will take you down to this band.”
16. So he took him down, and there they were, spread out over the surface of all the land, eating and drinking and dancing because of all of the abundant plunder which they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah.
17. Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped except four hundred young men who rode off on camels and fled.
18. So David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken; David also rescued his two wives.
19. None of theirs was missing from the smallest to the greatest, even sons and daughters, from the plunder up to everything they had taken for themselves; David brought back everything.
20. And David took all of the sheep, and the cattle they drove along in front of that livestock, and they said, “This is David’s plunder.”
21. Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David; they had left them behind at the Wadi Besor. They went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. David came near with the people and asked them how they were doing.
22. Then all the corrupt and useless men among the men who went with David reacted and said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them anything from the plunder which we recovered, except each man may take his own wife and children. They must take them along and go!”
23. But David said to them, “You should not do so, my brothers, with what Yahweh has given to us! He has preserved us and has given the raiding band that came against us into our hand.
24. And who would listen to you regarding this matter? For as the share of the one who went down into the battle, so the share of the one who remained with the baggage will be. They will share alike.”
25. So from that day and beyond, he made it a rule and a regulation for Israel until this day.
26. Then David came to Ziklag, and he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, to his friends, saying, “Here is a gift for you from the plunder of the enemies of Yahweh!”