Jonathan and David Renew Their Covenant

10 Then David asked Jonathan, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”

11 “Come,” he replied, “let us go out to the field.”

So the two of them went out into the field, 12 and Jonathan said, “By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will sound out my father by this time tomorrow or the next day. If he is favorable toward you, will I not send for you and tell you? 13 But if my father intends to bring evil on you, then may the LORD punish me, and ever so severely, if I do not tell you and send you on your way in safety. May the LORD be with you, just as He has been with my father. 14 And as long as I live, treat me with the LORD’s loving devotion,[fn] that I may not die, 15 and do not ever cut off your loving devotion from my household—not even when the LORD cuts off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”

16 So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD hold David’s enemies accountable.” 17 And Jonathan had David reaffirm his vow out of love for him, for Jonathan loved David as he loved himself.

18 Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon, and you will be missed if your seat is empty. 19 When you have stayed three days, hurry down to the place you hid on the day this trouble began, and remain beside the stone Ezel.[fn] 20 I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as if I were aiming at a target. 21 Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows!’ Now, if I expressly say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them,’ then come, because as surely as the LORD lives, it is safe for you and there is no danger. 22 But if I say to the young man, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, for the LORD has sent you away. 23 And as for the matter you and I have discussed, the LORD is a witness between you and me forever.”

24 So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon had come, the king sat down to eat. 25 He sat in his usual place by the wall, opposite Jonathan and beside Abner,[fn] but David’s place was empty. 26 Saul said nothing that day because he thought, “Something has happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean—surely he is unclean.”

27 But on the day after the New Moon, the second day, David’s place was still empty, and Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?”

28 Jonathan answered, “David urgently requested my permission to go to Bethlehem, 29 saying, ‘Please let me go, because our clan is holding a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has told me to be there. So now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please let me go and see my brothers.’ That is why he did not come to the king’s table.”