17. Once again Jonathan made David promise to love him, for Jonathan loved David as much as he loved himself.
18. Then Jonathan said to him, “Since tomorrow is the New Moon Festival, your absence will be noticed if you aren't at the meal.
19. The day after tomorrow your absence will be noticed even more; so go to the place where you hid the other time, and hide behind the pile of stones there.
20. I will then shoot three arrows at it, as though it were a target.
21. Then I will tell my servant to go and find them. And if I tell him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; get them,’ that means that you are safe and can come out. I swear by the living Lord that you will be in no danger.
22. But if I tell him, ‘The arrows are on the other side of you,’ then leave, because the Lord is sending you away.
23. As for the promise we have made to each other, the Lord will make sure that we will keep it for ever.”
24. So David hid in the fields. At the New Moon Festival, King Saul came to the meal
25. and sat in his usual place by the wall. Abner sat next to him, and Jonathan sat opposite him. David's place was empty,
26. but Saul said nothing that day, because he thought, “Something has happened to him, and he is not ritually pure.”
27. On the following day, the day after the New Moon Festival, David's place was still empty, and Saul asked Jonathan, “Why didn't David come to the meal either yesterday or today?”
28. Jonathan answered, “He begged me to let him go to Bethlehem.
29. ‘Please let me go,’ he said, ‘because our family is celebrating the sacrificial feast in town, and my brother ordered me to be there. So then, if you are my friend, let me go and see my relatives.’ That is why he isn't in his place at your table.”
30. Saul was furious with Jonathan and said to him, “How rebellious and faithless your mother was! Now I know you are taking sides with David and are disgracing yourself and that mother of yours!