The Murder of Ish-Bosheth
4 1 When Saul's son Ish-bosheth heard Abner had died in Hebron, he lost his courage, and all Israel was shaken. 2 Saul's son had two raiding-band leaders: Baanah and Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of Benjamin — for Beeroth too is counted part of Benjamin, 3 for the Beerothites had fled to Gittaim and have lived there as foreigners to this day.
4 Jonathan, Saul's son, had a boy lame in both feet. He was five when news of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel; his nurse grabbed him to flee, but as she rushed he fell and was crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.
5 Rechab and Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, came to Ish-bosheth's house in the heat of the day, while he took his noon rest. 6 They went into the middle of the house as if to get wheat, stabbed him in the belly, and Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped. 7 They had entered the house while Ish-bosheth lay on his bed in his bedroom. They struck him down, killed him, cut off his head, and took it, traveling all night by way of the Arabah. 8 They brought Ish-bosheth's head to David at Hebron and told the king, "Here is the head of Ish-bosheth son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life. Today our Father has avenged my lord the king on Saul and his offspring." a a v8 The killers credit our Father with their crime, but his answer comes through David, who condemns them as murderers of an innocent man.
9 But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite: "As surely as our Father lives, who has redeemed my life from every distress—" 10 —when a man told me, 'Look, Saul is dead,' thinking he brought good news, I seized and killed him at Ziklag. That was his reward for the news. 11 How much more when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house, on his own bed — should I not now demand his blood from you and remove you from the earth? 12 David ordered his young men, and they killed them, cut off their hands and feet, and hung them by the pool in Hebron. But Ish-bosheth's head they buried in Abner's tomb at Hebron.
