[1] Meanwhile the Philistine and Israelite armies had clashed. The men of Israel ran away, but many of them were killed on the heights of Gilboa. [2] The Philistines even followed Saul and his sons and closed in on them; there they killed his sons, Jonathan (the beloved friend of David), Abinadab, and Malchi-shua. [3] The battle closed in around Saul, and he was shot with arrows and badly wounded. [4] Saul (to his armor-bearer): Please take out your sword and thrust it through me. Don't let these uncircumcised dogs come and put their swords and spears into me for their sport. But his armor-bearer was afraid and would not do it. Saul drew his own sword and fell upon it. [5] When the armor-bearer saw this, he also drew his sword and fell upon it and died. [6] So Saul, his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all his men died together on the same day. [7] When the people of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and even those beyond the Jordan River, learned that the Israelite army had been defeated and heard that Saul and his sons were dead, they left their cities and fled. Then the Philistines came and lived in them. [8] The next day, as the Philistine army was looting the bodies of the fallen Israelites, they found Saul and his three sons dead on the heights of Gilboa. [9] They cut off Saul's head, stripped his body of his weapons, and sent messengers with the good news to the temples and to the people throughout Philistia. [10] They put Saul's armor in the temple of Astarte and nailed his body to the wall at Beth-shan. [11] But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard about this indignity done to Saul by the Philistines, [12] the brave men among them rose up and traveled through the night. When they arrived, they took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall at Beth-shan. They returned to Jabesh and burned them there. [13] Then they took their bones and buried them in Jabesh beneath the tamarisk tree, like the one where Saul had held court in Gibeah, and for seven days they fasted and mourned.
