1. Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah, came before Jonathan and said, “What have I done? What is my crime? What is my sin against your father that he should be seeking my life?”
2. “Never!” he said to him. “You will not die! Behold, my father does nothing great or small without disclosing it to me. So why should my father hide this matter from me? It cannot be.”
3. Then David swore again saying, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes. So he must have thought, ‘Let’s not let Jonathan know about this, else he will be grieved.’ But truly as Adonai lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.”
4. Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you!”
5. So David said to Jonathan, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon, when I am supposed to sit down with the king to eat. Instead, let me go hide myself in the countryside until the third evening.
6. If your father misses me at all, then say: ‘David earnestly asked my permission to run to Beth-lehem, his town, for it is the annual sacrifice there for the whole family.’