1
There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, It is for Sha'ul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Giv`onim.
2
The king called the Giv`onim, and said to them (now the Giv`onim were not of the children of Yisra'el, but of the remnant of the Amori; and the children of Yisra'el had sworn to them: and Sha'ul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Yisra'el and Yehudah);
3
and David said to the Giv`onim, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?
4
The Giv`onim said to him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Sha'ul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Yisra'el. He said, What you shall say, that will I do for you.
5
They said to the king, The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, [that] we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Yisra'el,
6
let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the LORD in Gevah of Sha'ul, the chosen of the LORD. The king said, I will give them.
7
But the king spared Mefivoshet, the son of Yonatan the son of Sha'ul, because of the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Yonatan the son of Sha'ul.
8
But the king took the two sons of Ritzpah the daughter of Ayah, whom she bore to Sha'ul, Armoni and Mefivoshet; and the five sons of Mikhal the daughter of Sha'ul, whom she bore to `Adri'el the son of Barzillai the Mecholati:
9
He delivered them into the hands of the Giv`onim, and they hanged them in the mountain before the LORD, and they fell [all] seven together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.