1 Samuel 28:3–10

Saul Consults a Medium

^3*Now Samuel had died, and all the Israelites had mourned for him and had buried him in his own city of Ramah. Saul had forced all the fortune tellers and mediums to leave Israel.

⁴The Philistine troops assembled and camped near the town of Shunem; Saul gathered the Israelites and camped at Mount Gilboa. ⁵When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was terrified, ^6*and so he asked the Lord what to do. But the Lord did not answer him at all, either by dreams or by the use of Urim and Thummim or by prophets. ⁷Then Saul ordered his officials, “Find me a woman who is a medium, and I will go and consult her.”

“There is one in Endor,” they answered.

⁸So Saul disguised himself; he put on different clothes, and after dark he went with two of his men to see the woman. “Consult the spirits for me and tell me what is going to happen,” he said to her. “Call up the spirit of the man I name.”

⁹The woman answered, “Surely you know what King Saul has done, how he forced the fortune tellers and mediums to leave Israel.^v Why, then, are you trying to trap me and get me killed?”

¹⁰Then Saul made a sacred vow. “By the living Lord I promise that you will not be punished for doing this,” he told her.