1
Samuel Chapter 17: 20-50
20 Early in the morning
David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He
reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing
each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of
supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers. 23
As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from
his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24
When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear.
25 Now the
Israelites had been saying, "Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out
to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also
give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in
Israel."
26 David
asked the men standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this
Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine
that he should defy the armies of the living God?"
27 They
repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, "This is what will be done
for the man who kills him."
28 When
Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at
him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few
sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came
down only to watch the battle."
29
"Now what have I done?" said David. "Can't I even speak?" 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same
matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said
was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.
32 David
said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will
go and fight him."
33 Saul
replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are
only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."
34 But
David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or
a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went
after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized
it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has
killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them,
because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The
LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me
from the hand of this Philistine."
Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with
you."
38 Then
Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on
his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and
tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
"I cannot go in these," he said to Saul,
"because I am not used to them." So he took them off. 40
Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in
the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the
Philistine.
41
Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to
David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy,
ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David,
"Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David
by his gods. 44 "Come here," he said, "and I'll
give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!"
45 David
said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I
come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom
you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will hand you over to
me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the
Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world
will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered
here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the
LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands."
48 As the
Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet
him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung
it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he
fell facedown on the ground.
50 So David
triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he
struck down the Philistine and killed him.
