1 The Philistines fought against Israel. The men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and the slain fell on Mount Gilboa.
2 The Philistines closed in on Saul and his sons, and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab and Malchi-shua, Saul's sons.
3 The fighting grew heavy around Saul. The archers, the men with bows, found him, and he was gravely wounded by the archers.
4 Saul told his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, so these uncircumcised men will not come and run me through and make sport of me." But his armor-bearer would not do it, because he was very afraid. So Saul took the sword and fell on it.
5 When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.
6 So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer, and all his men as well, died together that day.
7 The men of Israel on the far side of the valley and across the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead; they abandoned the towns and fled, and the Philistines came and settled in them.
8 The next day the Philistines came to strip the dead, and they found Saul and his three sons lying fallen on Mount Gilboa.
9 They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent word around the land of the Philistines to spread the good news in the house of their idols and among the people.
10 They placed his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth and nailed his body to the wall of Beth-shan.
11 The people living in Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul.
12 All the valiant men set out, traveled all night, and took Saul's body and his sons' bodies down from the wall of Beth-shan. They came to Jabesh and burned them there.
13 They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk at Jabesh, and they fasted for seven days.