Monday in Season after Pentecost

14Verse 14. Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance to the house of the LORD. “I am going to ask you something,” said the king to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.” 15Verse 15. “If I tell you,” Jeremiah replied, “you will surely put me to death. And even if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” 16Verse 16. But King Zedekiah swore secretly to Jeremiah, “As surely as the LORD lives, who has given us this life, I will not kill you, nor will I deliver you into the hands of these men who are seeking your life.” 17Verse 17. Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you indeed surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned down, and you and your household will survive. 18Verse 18. But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans. They will burn it down, and you yourself will not escape their grasp.’” 19Verse 19. But King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for the Chaldeans may deliver me into their hands to abuse me.” 20Verse 20. “They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the voice of the LORD in what I am telling you, that it may go well with you and you may live. 21Verse 21. But if you refuse to surrender, this is the word that the LORD has shown me: 22Verse 22. All the women who remain in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon, and those women will say: ‘They misled you and overcame you — those trusted friends of yours. Your feet sank into the mire, and they deserted you.’ 23Verse 23. All your wives and children will be brought out to the Chaldeans. And you yourself will not escape their grasp, for you will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned down.” 24Verse 24. Then Zedekiah warned Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about this conversation, or you will die. 25Verse 25. If the officials hear that I have spoken with you, and they come and demand of you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what he said to you; do not hide it from us, or we will kill you,’ 26Verse 26. then tell them, ‘I was presenting to the king my petition that he not return me to the house of Jonathan to die there.’” 27Verse 27. When all the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him, he relayed to them the exact words the king had commanded him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had overheard the conversation. 28Verse 28. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.

2Verse 2. Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. He was a very wealthy man with a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel. 3Verse 3. His name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband, a Calebite, was harsh and evil in his dealings. 4Verse 4. While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing sheep. 5Verse 5. So David sent ten young men and instructed them, “Go up to Nabal at Carmel. Greet him in my name 6Verse 6. and say to him, ‘Long life to you, and peace to you and to your house and to all that belongs to you. 7Verse 7. Now I hear that it is time for shearing. When your shepherds were with us, we did not harass them, and nothing of theirs was missing the whole time they were in Carmel. 8Verse 8. Ask your young men, and they will tell you. So let my young men find favor with you, for we have come on the day of a feast. Please give whatever you can spare to your servants and to your son David.’” 9Verse 9. When David’s young men arrived, they relayed all these words to Nabal on behalf of David. Then they waited. 10Verse 10. But Nabal asked them, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants these days are breaking away from their masters. 11Verse 11. Why should I take my bread and water and the meat I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give them to these men whose origin I do not know?” 12Verse 12. So David’s men turned around and went back, and they relayed to him all these words. 13Verse 13. And David said to his men, “Strap on your swords!” So David and all his men strapped on their swords, and about four hundred men followed David, while two hundred stayed with the supplies. 14Verse 14. Meanwhile, one of Nabal’s young men informed Nabal’s wife Abigail, “Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he screamed at them. 15Verse 15. Yet these men were very good to us. When we were in the field, we were not harassed, and nothing of ours went missing the whole time we lived among them. 16Verse 16. They were a wall around us, both day and night, the whole time we were herding our sheep near them. 17Verse 17. Now consider carefully what you must do, because disaster looms over our master and all his household. For he is such a scoundrel that nobody can speak to him!” 18Verse 18. Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys 19Verse 19. and said to her young men, “Go ahead of me. I will be right behind you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20Verse 20. As Abigail came riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them. 21Verse 21. Now David had just said, “In vain I have protected all that belonged to this man in the wilderness. Nothing that belongs to him has gone missing, yet he has paid me back evil for good. 22Verse 22. May God punish David, and ever so severely, if I let one male belonging to Nabal survive until morning.”