19. The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid before, and wait there by the stone pile.
20. I will come out and shoot three arrows to the side of the stone pile as though I were shooting at a target.
21. Then I will send a boy to bring the arrows back. If you hear me tell him, ‘They’re on this side,’ then you will know, as surely as the lord lives, that all is well, and there is no trouble.
22. But if I tell him, ‘Go farther—the arrows are still ahead of you,’ then it will mean that you must leave immediately, for the lord is sending you away.
23. And may the lord make us keep our promises to each other, for he has witnessed them.”
24. So David hid himself in the field, and when the new moon festival began, the king sat down to eat.
25. He sat at his usual place against the wall, with Jonathan sitting opposite him and Abner beside him. But David’s place was empty.
26. Saul didn’t say anything about it that day, for he said to himself, “Something must have made David ceremonially unclean.”