1David now fled from Naioth in Ramah and found Jonathan. “What have I done?” he exclaimed. “What is my crime? How have I offended your father that he is so determined to kill me?”2“That’s not true!” Jonathan protested. “You’re not going to die. He always tells me everything he’s going to do, even the little things. I know my father wouldn’t hide something like this from me. It just isn’t so!”3Then David took an oath before Jonathan and said, “Your father knows perfectly well about our friendship, so he has said to himself, ‘I won’t tell Jonathan—why should I hurt him?’ But I swear to you that I am only a step away from death! I swear it by the Lord and by your own soul!”

4“Tell me what I can do to help you,” Jonathan exclaimed.5David replied, “Tomorrow we celebrate the new moon festival. I’ve always eaten with the king on this occasion, but tomorrow I’ll hide in the field and stay there until the evening of the third day. 6If your father asks where I am, tell him I asked permission to go home to Bethlehem for an annual family sacrifice. 7If he says, ‘Fine!’ you will know all is well. But if he is angry and loses his temper, you will know he is determined to kill me. 8Show me this loyalty as my sworn friend—for we made a solemn pact before the Lord—or kill me yourself if I have sinned against your father. But please don’t betray me to him!”
9“Never!” Jonathan exclaimed. “You know that if I had the slightest notion my father was planning to kill you, I would tell you at once.”

10Then David asked, “How will I know whether or not your father is angry?”11“Come out to the field with me,” Jonathan replied. And they went out there together. 12Then Jonathan told David, “I promise by the Lord, the God of Israel, that by this time tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will talk to my father and let you know at once how he feels about you. If he speaks favorably about you, I will let you know. 13But if he is angry and wants you killed, may the Lord strike me and even kill me if I don’t warn you so you can escape and live. May the Lord be with you as he used to be with my father. 14And may you treat me with the faithful love of the Lord as long as I live. But if I die, 15treat my family with this faithful love, even when the Lord destroys all your enemies from the face of the earth.”

16So Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, saying, “May the Lord destroy all your enemies!” 17And Jonathan made David reaffirm his vow of friendship again, for Jonathan loved David as he loved himself.18Then Jonathan said, “Tomorrow we celebrate the new moon festival. You will be missed when your place at the table is empty. 19The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid before, and wait there by the stone pile.* 20I will come out and shoot three arrows to the side of the stone pile as though I were shooting at a target. 21Then 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. 22But 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. 23And may the Lord make us keep our promises to each other, for he has witnessed them.”

24So David hid himself in the field, and when the new moon festival began, the king sat down to eat. 25He sat at his usual place against the wall, with Jonathan sitting opposite him* and Abner beside him. But David’s place was empty. 26Saul didn’t say anything about it that day, for he said to himself, “Something must have made David ceremonially unclean.” 27But when David’s place was empty again the next day, Saul asked Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse been here for the meal either yesterday or today?”

28Jonathan replied, “David earnestly asked me if he could go to Bethlehem. 29He said, ‘Please let me go, for we are having a family sacrifice. My brother demanded that I be there. So please let me get away to see my brothers.’ That’s why he isn’t here at the king’s table.”30Saul boiled with rage at Jonathan. “You stupid son of a whore!”* he swore at him. “Do you think I don’t know that you want him to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother? 31As long as that son of Jesse is alive, you’ll never be king. Now go and get him so I can kill him!”

32“But why should he be put to death?” Jonathan asked his father. “What has he done?” 33Then Saul hurled his spear at Jonathan, intending to kill him. So at last Jonathan realized that his father was really determined to kill David.34Jonathan left the table in fierce anger and refused to eat on that second day of the festival, for he was crushed by his father’s shameful behavior toward David.35The next morning, as agreed, Jonathan went out into the field and took a young boy with him to gather his arrows. 36“Start running,” he told the boy, “so you can find the arrows as I shoot them.” So the boy ran, and Jonathan shot an arrow beyond him. 37When the boy had almost reached the arrow, Jonathan shouted, “The arrow is still ahead of you. 38Hurry, hurry, don’t wait.” So the boy quickly gathered up the arrows and ran back to his master. 39He, of course, suspected nothing; only Jonathan and David understood the signal. 40Then Jonathan gave his bow and arrows to the boy and told him to take them back to town.

41As soon as the boy was gone, David came out from where he had been hiding near the stone pile. Then David bowed three times to Jonathan with his face to the ground. Both of them were in tears as they embraced each other and said good-bye, especially David.42At last Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn loyalty to each other in the Lord’s name. The Lord is the witness of a bond between us and our children forever.” Then David left, and Jonathan returned to the town.

Chapter 21

1David went to the town of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he saw him. “Why are you alone?” he asked. “Why is no one with you?”2“The king has sent me on a private matter,” David said. “He told me not to tell anyone why I am here. I have told my men where to meet me later. 3Now, what is there to eat? Give me five loaves of bread or anything else you have.”4“We don’t have any regular bread,” the priest replied. “But there is the holy bread, which you can have if your young men have not slept with any women recently.”

5“Don’t worry,” David replied. “I never allow my men to be with women when they are on a campaign. And since they stay clean even on ordinary trips, how much more on this one!”6Since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the Lord in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.7Now Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief herdsman, was there that day, having been detained before the Lord.

8David asked Ahimelech, “Do you have a spear or sword? The king’s business was so urgent that I didn’t even have time to grab a weapon!”9“I only have the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah,” the priest replied. “It is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. Take that if you want it, for there is nothing else here.”“There is nothing like it!” David replied. “Give it to me!”10So David escaped from Saul and went to King Achish of Gath. 11But the officers of Achish were unhappy about his being there. “Isn’t this David, the king of the land?” they asked. “Isn’t he the one the people honor with dances, singing,‘Saul has killed his thousands,and David his ten thousands’?”

12David heard these comments and was very afraid of what King Achish of Gath might do to him. 13So he pretended to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard.14Finally, King Achish said to his men, “Must you bring me a madman? 15We already have enough of them around here! Why should I let someone like this be my guest?”

John 9:1-41

1As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 2“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”3“It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. 4We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.* The night is coming, and then no one can work. 5But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. 7He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!8His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” 9Some said he was, and others said, “No, he just looks like him!”But the beggar kept saying, “Yes, I am the same one!”

10They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?”11He told them, “The man they call Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself.’ So I went and washed, and now I can see!”12“Where is he now?” they asked.“I don’t know,” he replied.13Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, 14because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him. 15 The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, “He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see!”

16Some of the Pharisees said, “This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.” Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.
17Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, “What’s your opinion about this man who healed you?”The man replied, “I think he must be a prophet.”18 The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents. 19 They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he now see?”

20His parents replied, “We know this is our son and that he was born blind, 21but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. 23 That’s why they said, “He is old enough. Ask him.”24So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this,* because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”25“I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!”
26“But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?”

27“Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”28 Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses! 29 We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.”30“Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? 31We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. 32Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.”

34“You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.35 When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”36 The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.”37“You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”38“Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus.39 Then Jesus told him, “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”40 Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?”
41“If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.”

Psalms 113:1–114:8
 
1  Praise the Lord!
Yes, give praise, O servants of the Lord.
Praise the name of the Lord!
 
2  Blessed be the name of the Lord
now and forever.
 
3  Everywhere—from east to west—
praise the name of the Lord.
 
4  For the Lord is high above the nations;
his glory is higher than the heavens.
 
5  Who can be compared with the Lord our God,
who is enthroned on high?
 
6  He stoops to look down
on heaven and on earth.
 
7  He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the garbage
dump.
 
8  He sets them among princes,
even the princes of his own people!
 
9  He gives the childless woman a family,
making her a happy mother.
Praise the Lord!
 
Chapter 114

1 When the Israelites escaped from Egypt—
when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—
 
2  the land of Judah became God’s
sanctuary,
and Israel became his kingdom.
 
3  The Red Sea saw them coming and hurried out of their way!
The water of the Jordan River turned away.
 
4  The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs!
 
5  What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you hurry out of their way?
What happened, Jordan River, that you turned away?
 
6  Why, mountains, did you skip like rams?
Why, hills, like lambs?
 
7  Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.
 
8  He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock.

Proverbs 15:15-17

15  For the despondent, every day brings trouble;
for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.

16  Better to have little, with fear for the Lord,
than to have great treasure and inner turmoil.

17  A bowl of vegetables with someone you love
is better than steak with someone you hate.