Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed many Philistines

14 One day, Jonathan said to the young man who carried his weapons, “Come with me; we will go over to where the Philistia soldiers have put up their tents.” So they went, but Jonathan did not tell his father what they were going to do.

2 On that day, Saul and the 600 soldiers who were with him were sitting around a pomegranate tree at a place where the people threshed grain, near Gibeah. 3 Ahijah the priest was also there. He was wearing the sacred vest. Ahijah was the son of Ahitub, who was a brother of Ichabod. Ichabod and Ahitub were the sons of Phinehas, who was the son of Eli, who had been Yahweh’s priest at Shiloh.

No one knew that Jonathan had left the Israeli camp.

4 Jonathan planned that he and the young man would go through a narrow ◄pass/place between two cliffs► to get to where the Philistia army was. The cliff on one side of the pass was named Bozez, and the other cliff was named Seneh. 5 One cliff faced north toward Micmash, and the cliff on the other side faced south toward Geba town.

6 Jonathan said to the young man who carried his weapons, “Come with me. We will go to where those ◄pagans/people who do not believe in Yahweh► [MTY] have set up their tents. Perhaps Yahweh will help us. It does not matter whether we are only two men or many people; nothing can hinder Yahweh from enabling us to defeat them.”

7 The young man who was carrying Jonathan’s weapons said, “Do what you think is the best thing for us to do. I will help you.”

8 Then Jonathan said, “Okay, come with me. We will cross the valley to where the Philistia army is, and allow them to see us. 9 If they then say to us, ‘You two stay there until we come down to you,’ we will stay there and not go up to them. 10 But if they say to us, ‘Come up here and fight against us,’ that will show us that Yahweh will enable us to defeat them. Then we will go up and fight them.”

11 When the two of them crossed the valley, the Philistia soldiers saw them coming. They said, “Look! The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes in which they have been hiding!” 12 Then the Philistia soldiers who were closest to Jonathan and the young man who carried his weapons said, “Come up here, and we will teach you something about how to fight [IDM]!”

Jonathan said to the young man who was with him, “Come behind me and climb up, because Yahweh is going to help us to defeat them!” 13 So Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and his feet because it was very steep. The young man climbed up following him. As Jonathan climbed, he struck and killed many Philistia soldiers, and the young man who was with him killed many more as he followed behind Jonathan. 14 In that first battle the two of them killed about 20 Philistia soldiers in an area that was about half an acre.

15 Then all the other Philistia soldiers, the ones in the camp and the ones who had been attacking the Israeli towns, ones who were out in the field much closer, panicked. Then God caused the ground to shake, and they all became terrified/very afraid.