Douay Rheims Original ↷
1 Samuel 20 📜 📕 ↷
Jonathan Helps David
1 BUT David also fled from Najoth, which is in Ramatha, and coming spake before Jonathas: What have I done? What is mine iniquity, and what sin of mine against thy father, that he seeketh my life?📜💬📚
2 Who said to him: God forbid, thou shalt not die: for neither will my father do any thing great or little, unless he first tell me: this word therefore only hath my father concealed from me? No, this shall not be.📜💬📚
3 And he sware again to David. And David said: Thy father surely knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, & will say: Let not Jonathas know this, lest perhaps he be sad. Yea more, our Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, by one degree only (as I may so say) I and death are divided.📜💬📚
4 And Jonathas said to David: Whatsoever thy soul shall say to me, I will do for thee.📜💬📚
5 And David said to Jonathas: Behold the calends are to morrow, and I after the manner am wont to sit beside the king to eat: dismiss me therefore that I may be hid in the field until the evening of the third day.📜💬📚
6 If thy father looking inquire for me, thou shalt answer him: David desired me, that he might go quickly into Bethlehem his city: because there be solemn victims to all of his tribe.📜💬📚
7 If he shall say: Well; peace shall be to thy servant: but if he be angry, know that his malice is complete.📜💬📚
8 Do mercy therefore toward thy servant: because thou hast caused me thy servant to enter the league of our Lord with thee. But if there be any iniquity in me, do thou kill me, and bring me not in to thy father.📜💬📚
9 And Jonathas said: Be this far from thee, for neither can it be, that I should not tell thee, if I shall certainly know that my father's malice is complete against thee.📜💬📚
Jonathan and David Renew Their Covenant
10 And David answered Jonathas: Who shall bring me word, if thy father answer thee perhaps any thing sharply of me?📜💬📚
11 And Jonathas said to David: Come, let us go forth abroad into the field: and when they were both gone forth into the field,📜💬📚
12 Jonathas said to David: Lord God of Israel, if I shall search out my father's meaning, to morrow or the day after, and some good thing be upon David, and I send not immediately unto thee, and make thee know thereof,📜💬📚
13 these things do our Lord to Jonathas, and these things add he. But if my father's malice shall persevere against thee, I will reveal thine ear, and will dismiss thee, that thou mayest go in peace, and our Lord be with thee, as he hath been with my father.📜💬📚
14 And if I live, thou shalt do me the mercy of our Lord, but if I die,📜💬📚
15 thou shalt not take away thy mercy from my house for ever, when our Lord shall have rooted out the enemies of David, every one out of the land: take he away Jonathas from his house, and our Lord require it of the hands of David's enemies.📜💬📚
16 Jonathas therefore made a league with the house of David: & our Lord required it of the hands of David's enemies.📜💬📚
17 And Jonathas added to swear unto David, because he love him, for as his own soul, so he loved him.📜💬📚
18 And Jonathas said to him: To morrow are the calends, and thou shalt be asked for:📜💬📚
19 for thy sitting will be inquired of till after to morrow. Thou shalt therefore go down in haste, and shalt come to the place, where thou must be hid in the day, when it is lawful to work, and thou shalt sit beside the stone which is named Ezel.📜💬📚
20 And I will shoot three arrows near it, and will shoot as it were exercising my self at a mark.📜💬📚
21 I will send also a boy saying to him: Go, and fetch me the arrows.📜💬📚
22 If I shall say to the boy: Lo, the arrows are on this side thee, take them up: come thou to me, because there is peace to thee, and there is no evil, our Lord liveth. But if I shall speak thus to the boy: Lo the arrows are beyond thee: Go in peace, because our Lord hath dismissed thee.📜💬📚
23 And concerning the word which I and thou have spoken, our Lord be between thee and me for ever.📜💬📚
24 David therefore was hid in the field, and the calends came, and the king sat down to eat bread.📜💬📚
25 And when the king was set upon his chair (according to the custom) which was beside the wall, Jonathas arose, and Abner sat at the side of Saul, and David's place appeared void.📜💬📚
26 And Saul said nothing that day, for he thought it had chanced perhaps unto him, that he was not clean, nor purified.📜💬📚
27 And when the second day was come after the calends, again David's place appeared empty. And Saul said to Jonathas his son: Why came not the son of Isai neither yesterday nor to day to eat?📜💬📚
28 Jonathas answered Saul: He desired me instantly, that he might go into Bethlehem,📜💬📚
29 and he said: Let me go, because there is a solemn sacrifice in the city, one of my brethren hath sent for me: now therefore if I have found grace in thy sight, I will go quickly, & see my brethren. For this cause he came not to the king's table.📜💬📚
Saul Seeks to Kill Jonathan
30 But Saul being wrath against Jonathas, said to him: Thou son of a woman which of her own accord ravisheth a man, am I ignorant that thou lovest the son of Isai unto thine own confusion, & to the confusion of thine ignominious mother?📜💬📚
31 For all the days, that the son of Isai shall live upon the earth, thou shalt not be established, nor thy Kingdom. Therefore now presently send, and bring him to me: because he is the son of death.📜💬📚
32 And Jonathas answering Saul his father, said: Why shall he die? What hath he done?📜💬📚
33 And Saul caught a spear to strike him. And Jonathas understood that it was determined of his father, that he would kill David.📜💬📚
34 Jonathas therefore rose from the table in anger of fury, and did not eat bread the second day of the calends. For he was strucken heavy upon David, because his father had confounded him.📜💬📚
35 And when the morning appeared, Jonathas came into the field according to the appointment with David, and a little boy with him,📜💬📚
36 and said to his boy: Go, & fetch me the arrows, which I shoot. And when the boy had run, he shot an other arrow beyond the boy.📜💬📚
37 The boy therefore came to the place of the arrow, which Jonathas had shot: and Jonathas cried behind the back of the boy, and said: Lo the arrow is there further beyond thee.📜💬📚
38 And Jonathas cried again behind the back of the boy, saying: Make haste speedily, stand not. And Jonathas his boy gathered up his arrows, and brought them to his master:📜💬📚
39 and he was altogether ignorant, what was done: for only Jonathas and David knew the matter.📜💬📚
40 Jonathas therefore gave his armour to the boy, and said to him: Go, and carry them into the city.📜💬📚
41 And when the boy was gone, David rose out of the place, which did bend to the South, and falling flat on the ground, adored thrice: & kissing one an other, they wept together, but David more.📜💬📚
42 Jonathas therefore said to David: Go in peace: whatsoever we have sworn both of us in the name of our Lord, saying: Our Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever.📜💬📚
43 And David arose, and departed: but Jonathas also entered into the City.📜💬📚
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