1 The Philistines brought their armies together for war. They gathered at Socoh in Judah and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, at Ephes-dammim.
2 Saul and the men of Israel gathered and encamped in the valley of Elah, and they formed their battle line to meet the Philistines.
3 The Philistines stood on the hill on one side and Israel stood on the hill on the other, with the valley between them.
4 A champion came out of the Philistine camp, Goliath by name, from Gath. He stood six cubits and a span tall.
5 On his head was a bronze helmet, and he wore a coat of scale armor weighing five thousand shekels of bronze.
6 He had bronze guards on his legs, and a bronze javelin was slung between his shoulders.
7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. The man bearing his shield went ahead of him.
8 He stood and called out to Israel's battle lines, "Why come out and line up for battle? Am I not the Philistine, and are you not Saul's slaves? Pick a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me.
9 If he can fight me and kill me, we will be your slaves; but if I beat him and kill him, you will be our slaves and serve us."
10 The Philistine went on, "Today I taunt the battle lines of Israel! Give me a man, and we will fight it out together."
11 Hearing these words of the Philistine, Saul and all Israel were shattered and very much afraid.
12 David was the son of an Ephrathite from Bethlehem of Judah named Jesse, who had eight sons. In Saul's time the man was old, advanced in years among men.
13 Jesse's three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war. The names of the three sons who went to the war were Eliab the firstborn, Abinadab the second, and Shammah the third.
14 David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul,
15 while David went back and forth from Saul's side to tend his father's sheep at Bethlehem.
16 Morning and evening the Philistine came forward and took his stand, for forty days.
17 Jesse told his son David, "Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves for your brothers, and run them to the camp for your brothers.
18 These ten cheeses take to the commander of their thousand. Check on your brothers' welfare, and bring back some token from them."
19 Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah, fighting the Philistines.
20 David got up early in the morning, left the sheep with someone to watch them, picked up the load and set off, as Jesse had instructed him. He reached the camp just as the army was marching out to the battle line, raising the war cry.
21 Israel and the Philistines formed up, battle line against battle line.
22 David left his things with the keeper of the supplies, ran to the battle line, and came and asked his brothers how they were.
23 While he was speaking with them, the champion, the Philistine from Gath named Goliath, came up out of the Philistine lines and said the same words as before, and David heard.
24 All the men of Israel, as soon as they saw the man, ran from him in great fear.
25 The men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man coming up? He comes up to taunt Israel. The man who kills him the king will make very rich; he will give him his daughter and make his father's house exempt in Israel."
26 David asked the men standing with him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away Israel's disgrace? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine anyway, that he should taunt the battle lines of the living God?"
27 The people gave him the same answer: "That is what will be done for the man who kills him."
28 Eliab, his eldest brother, heard him talking to the men, and Eliab grew angry with David. He said, "Why did you come down? Who did you leave those few sheep with in the wilderness? I know how insolent you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down to see the fighting."
29 David said, "Now what have I done? Was it not just a word?"
30 He turned from him to someone else and asked the same thing, and the people answered him as before.
31 What David had said was overheard and reported to Saul, and he had him brought.
32 David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on his account. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine."
33 Saul told David, "You cannot go out against this Philistine and fight him. You are just a boy, and he has been a warrior since he was a boy."
34 David said to Saul, "Your servant has been tending his father's sheep. Whenever a lion came, or a bear, and carried off a sheep from the flock,
35 I went after it, struck it, and snatched the sheep out of its mouth. If it turned on me, I grabbed it by the beard, struck it and killed it.
36 Lions and bears alike your servant has killed, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the battle lines of the living God."
37 David went on, "The LORD who rescued me from the lion's paw and the bear's paw will rescue me from this Philistine's hand." Saul told David, "Go, and the LORD be with you."
38 Saul dressed David in his own tunic, put a bronze helmet on his head, and dressed him in a coat of mail.
39 David fastened his sword over the tunic and tried to walk, for he had never tried them out. David told Saul, "I cannot walk in these; I am not used to them." And David took them off.
40 He took his staff in his hand, picked out five smooth stones from the stream bed, and put them in his shepherd's bag, in the pouch. With his sling in his hand he went toward the Philistine.
41 The Philistine kept coming, closer and closer to David, with the man bearing the shield ahead of him.
42 The Philistine looked David over and, seeing him, despised him, for he was a mere boy, ruddy and good-looking.
43 The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
44 The Philistine said to David, "Come here, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!"
45 David told the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel's battle lines, whom you have taunted.
46 Today the LORD will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and take your head from you, and today I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, so that all the earth may know that Israel has a God,
47 and this whole assembly may know that not by sword or spear does the LORD save. The battle belongs to the LORD, and he will hand you over to us."
48 As the Philistine got up and came forward to meet David, David ran quickly to the battle line to meet the Philistine.
49 David reached into his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and hit the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground.
50 So with a sling and a stone David overpowered the Philistine; he struck the Philistine down and killed him, and David had no sword in his hand.
51 David ran and stood over the Philistine, took hold of his sword, pulled it out of its sheath, and killed him, cutting off his head with it. The Philistines saw that their hero was dead, and they fled.
52 The men of Israel and Judah rose up with a shout and chased the Philistines as far as the entrance of the valley and the gates of Ekron. Philistine dead lay along the Shaaraim road all the way to Gath and Ekron.
53 The children of Israel returned from their hot pursuit of the Philistines and looted their camp.
54 David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem; his weapons he put in his own tent.
55 As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he asked Abner, the army commander, "Abner, whose son is this boy?" Abner said, "As surely as you live, O king, I do not know."
56 The king said, "Find out whose son this young fellow is."
57 As David came back from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, the Philistine's head still in his hand.
58 Saul asked him, "Whose son are you, boy?" David said, "The son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem."