At the time of ¹  the harvest three ²  of the thirty leaders went down to ³  David at the cave of Adullam. A band of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim.

When all the Israelites who were in the valley saw that the army ¹  had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. The Philistines came and occupied them.

The next day, when the Philistines came to strip loot from the corpses, they discovered Saul and his sons lying dead on Mount Gilboa.

but then they made a stand in the middle of that area. They defended it ¹  and defeated the Philistines; the Lord gave them a great victory. ² 

Three of the thirty leaders went down to David at the rocky cliff at the cave of Adullam, while a Philistine force was camped in the Valley of Rephaim.

When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, then attack. ¹  For at that moment the Lord is going before you to strike down the army ²  of the Philistines.”

There was another battle with the Philistines in which Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, ¹  whose spear had a shaft as big as the crossbeam of a weaver’s loom. ² 

the foreigners living in Egypt; ¹  all the kings of the land of Uz; ²  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ³  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ⁴ 

So this is what the sovereign Lord says: Take note, I am about to stretch out my hand against the Philistines. I will kill ¹  the Cherethites ²  and destroy those who remain on the seacoast.

Those who live by the sea, the people who came from Crete, ¹  are as good as dead. ²  The Lord has decreed your downfall, ³  Canaan, land of the Philistines: “I will destroy everyone who lives there!” ⁴ 

The leaders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish said to the leaders of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of King Saul of Israel, who has been with me for quite some time? ¹  I have found no fault with him from the day of his defection until the present time!” ² 

he ¹  went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan ²  from the leaders ³  of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken ⁴  them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines ⁵  publicly exposed their corpses ⁶  after ⁷  they ⁸  had killed Saul at Gilboa.)

The Philistines were scared because they thought that gods had come to the camp. ¹  They said, “Too bad for ²  us! We’ve never seen anything like this!

So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. ¹  The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle.

Then the men of Israel left Mizpah and chased the Philistines, striking them down all the way to an area below Beth Car.

They cut off Saul’s ¹  head and stripped him of his armor. They sent messengers to announce the news in the temple of their idols and among their people throughout the surrounding land of the Philistines.

So the woman did as the prophet said. ¹  She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

King David dedicated these things to the Lord, ¹  along with the silver and gold which he had carried off from all the nations, including ²  Edom, ³  Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, and Amalek.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘The Philistines ¹  have exacted merciless revenge, ²  showing intense scorn ³  in their effort to destroy Judah ⁴  with unrelenting hostility. ⁵ 

The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, where they positioned it beside Dagon.