4. Again David consulted the Lord, who answered: Go down to Keilah, for I will deliver the Philistines into your power.
5. So David went with his men to Keilah and fought against the Philistines. He drove off their cattle and inflicted a severe defeat on them, and freed the inhabitants of Keilah.
6. Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, who had fled to David, went down with David to Keilah, taking the ephod with him.
7. When Saul was told that David had entered Keilah, he thought: “God has put him in my hand, for he has boxed himself in by entering a city with gates and bars.”
8. Saul then called all the army to war, in order to go down to Keilah and besiege David and his men.
9. When David found out that Saul was planning to harm him, he said to the priest Abiathar, “Bring the ephod here.”
10. “Lord God of Israel,” David prayed, “your servant has heard that Saul plans to come to Keilah, to destroy the city on my account.
11. Will they hand me over? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? Lord God of Israel, tell your servant.” The Lord answered: He will come down.
12. David then asked, “Will the citizens of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?” The Lord answered: They will deliver you.
13. So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and wandered from place to place. When Saul was informed that David had fled from Keilah, he did not go forth.
14. David now lived in the strongholds in the wilderness, or in the barren hill country near Ziph. Though Saul sought him continually, the Lord did not deliver David into his hand.
15. While David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh he was afraid that Saul had come out to seek his life.
16. Then Saul’s son, Jonathan, came down to David at Horesh and encouraged him in the Lord.
17. He said to him: “Have no fear, my father Saul shall not lay a hand to you. You shall be king of Israel and I shall be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”
18. The two of them made a covenant before the Lord in Horesh, where David remained, while Jonathan returned to his home.
19. Some of the Ziphites went up to Saul in Gibeah and said, “David is hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh on the hill of Hachilah, south of Jeshimon.
20. Therefore, whenever the king wishes to come down, let him do so. It will be our task to deliver him into the king’s hand.”