Then David said to Gad, “I am in a great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of Adonai, for His mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.”
But this is a people robbed and looted. all of them trapped in holes, hidden away in prisons. They have become a prey with no one to deliver them, and plunder, with none to say, “Give them back!”
Now the cistern where Ishmael cast all the corpses of the men whom he killed, because they were on Gedaliah’s side, was the one which King Asa had made for fear of King Baasa of Israel. Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain.
Say this to them, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘As I live, surely those who are in the ruins will fall by the sword. Whoever is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and whoever is in the strongholds and in the caves will die of the plague.
Now the men of Ai looked back and saw, behold, the smoke of the city rising up to the sky! They had no place to flee this way or that, since the people who had been fleeing to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.
Then the children of Ammon also crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was greatly distressed.
So they both let themselves be seen by the Philistine garrison. “Look, some Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they were hiding,” the Philistines said.
Also when all the men of Israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines had fled, they also chased after them in the battle.
Then some of the Ziphites went up to Saul in Gibeah, saying, “Isn’t David hiding with us in the strongholds at Choresh, in the hill of Hachilah which is south of Jeshimon?
When he came across the sheepfolds along the way where there was a cave, Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were already sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.
When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those 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. Then the Philistines came and occupied them.
Now when the Philistines heard that Bnei-Yisrael had assembled at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines marched against Israel. When Bnei-Yisrael heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines.