²The Philistines kept chasing Saul and his sons. They killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. ³The fighting was heavy around Saul. Men who were armed with bows and arrows caught up with him. They shot their arrows at him and wounded him badly.

⁴Saul spoke to the man who was carrying his armor. He said, “Pull out your sword. Stick it through me. If you don’t, those men who aren’t circumcised will come and hurt me badly.”

But the man was terrified. He wouldn’t do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it. ⁵The man saw that Saul was dead. So he fell on his own sword and died. ⁶Saul and his three sons died. All of them died together.

⁷All of the Israelites who lived in the valley saw that their army had run away. They saw that Saul and his sons were dead. So they left their towns and ran away. Then the Philistines came and settled down in them.

⁸The day after the Philistines had won the battle, they came to take what they wanted from the dead bodies. They found Saul and his sons dead on Mount Gilboa. ⁹So they took what they wanted from Saul’s body. They took his head and his armor. Then they sent messengers through the whole land of the Philistines. They announced the news to the statues of their gods. They also announced it among their people. ¹⁰They put Saul’s armor in the temple of their gods. They hung his head up in the temple of their god Dagon.

¹¹The people of Jabesh Gilead heard about everything the Philistines had done to Saul. ¹²So all of their brave men went and got the bodies of Saul and his sons. They brought them to Jabesh. Then they buried the bones of Saul and his sons under the great tree that was there. They didn’t eat anything for seven days.

¹³Saul died because he wasn’t faithful to the Lord. He didn’t obey the word of the Lord. He even asked for advice from a person who gets messages from those who have died. ¹⁴He didn’t ask the Lord for advice. So the Lord put him to death. He turned the kingdom over to David. David was the son of Jesse.

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