19
The day after tomorrow your absence will be noticed even more; so go to the place where you hid yourself the other time, and hide behind the pile of stones there.
20
I will then shoot three arrows at it, as though it were a target.
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Then I will tell my servant to go and find them. And if I tell him, "Look, the arrows are on this side of you; get them,' that means that you are safe and can come out. I swear by the living Lord that you will be in no danger.
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But if I tell him, "The arrows are on the other side of you,' then leave, because the Lord is sending you away.
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As for the promise we have made to each other, the Lord will make sure that we will keep it forever."
24
So David hid in the fields. At the New Moon Festival, King Saul came to the meal
25
and sat in his usual place by the wall. Abner sat next to him, and Jonathan sat across the table from him. David's place was empty,
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but Saul said nothing that day, because he thought, "Something has happened to him, and he is not ritually pure."
27
On the following day, the day after the New Moon Festival, David's place was still empty, and Saul asked Jonathan, "Why didn't David come to the meal either yesterday or today?"
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Jonathan answered, "He begged me to let him go to Bethlehem.
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"Please let me go,' he said, "because our family is celebrating the sacrificial feast in town, and my brother ordered me to be there. So then, if you are my friend, let me go and see my relatives.' That is why he isn't in his place at your table."
30
Saul became furious with Jonathan and said to him, "How rebellious and faithless your mother was! Now I know you are taking sides with David and are disgracing yourself and that mother of yours!
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Don't you realize that as long as David is alive, you will never be king of this country? Now go and bring him here - he must die!"
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"Why should he die?" Jonathan replied. "What has he done?"
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At that, Saul threw his spear at Jonathan to kill him, and Jonathan realized that his father was really determined to kill David.
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Jonathan got up from the table in a rage and ate nothing that day - the second day of the New Moon Festival. He was deeply distressed about David, because Saul had insulted him.
35
The following morning Jonathan went to the fields to meet David, as they had agreed. He took a young boy with him
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and said to him, "Run and find the arrows I'm going to shoot." The boy ran, and Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him.
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When the boy reached the place where the arrow had fallen, Jonathan shouted to him, "The arrow is farther on!
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Don't just stand there! Hurry up!" The boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master,
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not knowing what it all meant; only Jonathan and David knew.
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Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and told him to take them back to town.
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After the boy had left, David got up from behind the pile of stones, fell on his knees and bowed with his face to the ground three times. Both he and Jonathan were crying as they kissed each other; David's grief was even greater than Jonathan's.
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Then Jonathan said to David, "God be with you. The Lord will make sure that you and I, and your descendants and mine, will forever keep the sacred promise we have made to each other." Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.