David Avenges the Gibeonites

21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David ainquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, “It is because of Saul and his 1bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but bof the remnant of the Amorites; the children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them cin his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.

3 Therefore David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless dthe inheritance of the Lord?”

4 And the Gibeonites said to him, “We will have no silver or gold from Saul or from his house, nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us.”

So he said, “Whatever you say, I will do for you.”

5 Then they answered the king, “As for the man who consumed us and plotted against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territories of Israel, 6 let seven men of his descendants be delivered eto us, and we will hang them before the Lord fin Gibeah of Saul, gwhom the Lord chose.”

And the king said, “I will give them.”

7 But the king spared hMephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of ithe Lord’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8 So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of jRizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, and the five sons of 2Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she 3brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; 9 and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the hill kbefore the Lord. So 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 Now lRizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, mfrom the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.

11 And David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. 12 Then David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of nJabesh Gilead who had stolen them from the street of 4Beth Shan, where the oPhilistines had hung them up, after the Philistines had struck down Saul in Gilboa. 13 So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from there; and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. 14 They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in pZelah, in the tomb of Kish his father. So they performed all that the king commanded. And after that qGod heeded the prayer for the land.