1. There was a famine for three years in a row during David’s rule. David asked the Lord about this, and the Lord said, "It is caused by Saul and his household, who are guilty of bloodshed because he killed the people of Gibeon."
2. So the king called for the Gibeonites and spoke to them.(Now the Gibeonites weren’t Israelites but were survivors of the Amorites. The Israelites had sworn a solemn pledge to spare them, but Saul tried to eliminate them in his enthusiasm for the people of Israel and Judah.)
3. David said to the Gibeonites, "What can I do for you? How can I fix matters so you can benefit from the Lord’s inheritance?"
4. The Gibeonites said to him, "We don’t want any silver or gold from Saul or his family, and it isn’t our right to have anyone in Israel killed.""What do you want?" David asked. "I’ll do it for you."
5. "Okay then," they said to the king. "That man who opposed and oppressed us, who planned to destroy us, keeping us from having a place to live anywhere in Israel—
6. hand over seven of his sons to us, and we will hang them before the Lord at Gibeon on the Lord’s mountain.""I will hand them over," the king said.
7. But the king spared Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son and Saul’s grandson, because of the Lord’s solemn pledge that was between them—between David and Saul’s son Jonathan.
8. So the king took the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Armoni and Mephibosheth, whom she had birthed for Saul; and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, whom she birthed for Adriel, Barzillai’s son, who was from Meholah,
9. and he handed them over to the Gibeonites. They hanged them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them died at the same time. They were executed in the first days of the harvest, at the beginning of the barley harvest.