Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said,‘ Give me a king and princes’?So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.
Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa.The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki- Shua.The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.Saul said to his armor-bearer,“ Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.” But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them.
The Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands.Abijah and his troops inflicted heavy losses on them, so that there were five hundred thousand casualties among Israel’s able men.
There Israel’s troops were routed by David’s men, and the casualties that day were great— twenty thousand men.The battle spread out over the whole countryside, and the forest swallowed up more men that day than the sword.
As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apartand the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions.They went down alive into the realm of the dead, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting,“ The earth is going to swallow us too!”And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.
