As a one year old child, in whom there is no guilt, was Saul, when he became king; and he reigned two years over Israel.

And Saul chose three thousand of Israel – two thousand were with Saul in Michmas and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand with Jonathan in The Hill of the House of Benjamin – and the rest of the people he sent away, each man to his own city.

And Jonathan slew the praetor of the Philistines, who was in The Hill, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Judaeans hear.”

And all Israel heard it said that Saul had slain the praetor of the Philistines, and also that Israel had attacked the Philistines. And the people were gathered after Saul in Gilgal.

And the Philistines gathered together to wage war with Israel: thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and people like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmas, to the east of Beth aven.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in distress, because the people were pressed, the people hid themselves in caves and in strongholds and in clefts of rocks and in caves of flints and in pits.

And the Judaeans crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was in Gilgal until then and all the people had gathered together after him.

He had waited seven days for the time that Samuel had said, but Samuel had not come to Gilgal and the people were scattering from him.

So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering and the holy slaughterings near to me.” And he sacrificed the burnt offering.

As soon as he had finished sacrificing the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and to inquire after his health.

Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had gathered together at Michmas,

I said, ‘Now the Philistines may come down upon me at Gilgal, and I have not prayed before the LORD.’ So I forced myself and sacrificed the burnt offering.”

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the speech of the LORD your God, which He commanded you. For now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel for ever.

But now your kingdom shall not be established. The LORD has established before Himself a man doing his will. And the LORD has commanded him to be king over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”

And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to The Hill of the House of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were found with him: about six hundred men.

And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people who were found with them, stayed in The Hill of the House of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Michmas.

And the destroyer came out of the camp of the Philistines in three armies: one army turned toward Ophrah to the land of the South;

another army turned toward Beth horon, and another army turned toward the border that looks down on the Valley of the Hyenas, on the wilderness.

There was no craftsman, making equipment, to be found throughout all the territory of the Land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, “Lest the Judaeans make themselves swords or spears”.

But all Israel went down to the land of the Philistines, each man to sharpen his goad and the ploughshare of his yoke and his axe and his chisel.

And they had the file to sharpen on it the dullness of every iron utensil – for the chisels and for the pin of the yokes and for the fork of the fullers, which had three teeth, and for axes – and to point the goad.

So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and with Jonathan, but for Saul and Jonathan his son they were found.

And the praetor of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmas.