24When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, they told him, “Look, David is in the wilderness of En Gedi.” ²So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel, and he and his men went to search for David in the direction of^a the Rocks of the Mountain Goats.^b ³He came to the sheep pens beside the road, and a cave was there. Then Saul went in to relieve himself.^c Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost part of the cave. ⁴And David’s men said to him, “Look, today is the day about which Yahweh said to you, ‘See, I am giving your enemy^d into your hand, and you can do to him whatever seems good to you.’ ”^e So David got up and secretly cut the hem of Saul’s robe. ⁵And then^f afterward David felt guilty,^g because he had cut the hem of Saul’s robe.^h ⁶He said to his men, “Far be it from me inⁱ Yahweh, that I do this thing to my lord, to Yahweh’s anointed one, by stretching out my hand against him! For he is the anointed one of Yahweh.” ⁷So David rebuked his men with the words and did not allow them to rise against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave, and he went on his^j way.

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Footnotes

aLiterally “on the face of”
bHebrew “of the Jael”
cLiterally “to cover his feet”
dThe Masoretic Hebrew text (Kethib) reads “enemies,” but the reading tradition (Qere) has the singular “enemy”
eLiterally “as that which is good in your eyes”
fLiterally “And it happened”
gLiterally “the heart of David struck him”
hLiterally “the hem which was for Saul”
iHebrew “from”
jHebrew “the”