2. A man in Maon who had land at Carmel was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was cutting the wool off his sheep at Carmel.
3. His name was Nabal, and he was a descendant of Caleb. His wife was named Abigail. She was wise and beautiful, but Nabal was cruel and mean.
4. While David was in the desert, he heard that Nabal was cutting the wool from his sheep.
5. So he sent ten young men and told them, “Go to Nabal at Carmel, and greet him for me.
6. Say to Nabal, ‘May you and your family and all who belong to you have good health!
7. I have heard that you are cutting the wool from your sheep. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harm them. All the time your shepherds were at Carmel, we stole nothing from them.
8. Ask your servants, and they will tell you. We come at a happy time, so be kind to my young men. Please give anything you can find for them and for your son David.’ ”
9. When David’s men arrived, they gave the message to Nabal, but Nabal insulted them.
10. He answered them, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many slaves are running away from their masters today!
11. I have bread and water, and I have meat that I killed for my servants who cut the wool. But I won’t give it to men I don’t know.”
12. David’s men went back and told him all Nabal had said.
13. Then David said to them, “Put on your swords!” So they put on their swords, and David put on his also. About four hundred men went with David, but two hundred men stayed with the supplies.
14. One of Nabal’s servants said to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers from the desert to greet our master, but Nabal insulted them.
15. These men were very good to us. They did not harm us. They stole nothing from us during all the time we were out in the field with them.
16. Night and day they protected us. They were like a wall around us while we were with them caring for the sheep.
17. Now think about it, and decide what you can do. Terrible trouble is coming to our master and all his family. Nabal is such a wicked man that no one can even talk to him.”
18. Abigail hurried. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two leather bags full of wine, five cooked sheep, a bushel of cooked grain, a hundred cakes of raisins, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs and put all these on donkeys.
19. Then she told her servants, “Go on. I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband.