1
Then there was a famine in the days of David for three consecutive years, and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered,
It is because of Saul and because of
his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.
2
And the king called the Gibeonites and said unto them: (now the Gibeonites
were not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the sons of Israel had sworn unto them, and Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah).
3
Therefore, David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make reconciliation that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD?
4
And the Gibeonites replied unto him, We have no
quarrel regarding silver nor gold with Saul, nor with his house; neither do we desire that anyone in Israel should die. And he said unto them, What ye shall say
that will I do for you.
5
And they answered the king, The man that consumed us and that devised against us, let us destroy him that nothing
of him remains in any of the borders of Israel.
6
Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will disjoint them,
hanging them from a tree, unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul,
whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give
them.
7
But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the LORD’s oath that
was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
8
But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she gave birth unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she had given birth unto Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite;
9
and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they disjointed them
hanging them from a tree in the hill before the LORD; and they fell
all seven together and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first
days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
10
And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it upon the rock from the beginning of harvest until water rained upon them out of heaven and allowed neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.
11
And it was told David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.