4. When the messengers came to Gibeah where Saul lived and told the people the news, they cried loudly.
5. Saul was coming home from plowing the fields with his oxen when he heard the people crying. He asked, “What’s wrong with the people that they are crying?” Then they told Saul what the messengers from Jabesh had said.
6. When Saul heard their words, God’s Spirit rushed upon him with power, and he became very angry.
7. So he took a pair of oxen and cut them into pieces. Then he gave the pieces of the oxen to messengers and ordered them to carry them through all the land of Israel.The messengers said, “This is what will happen to the oxen of anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.” So the people became very afraid of the Lord. They all came together as if they were one person.
8. Saul gathered the people together at Bezek. There were three hundred thousand men from Israel and thirty thousand men from Judah.
9. They said to the messengers who had come, “Tell the people at Jabesh Gilead this: ‘Before the day warms up tomorrow, you will be saved.’ ” So the messengers went and reported this to the people at Jabesh, and they were very happy.