2 Samuel 4

Revised Geneva Translation

4 And when Saul’s son heard that Abner had died in Hebron, his hands were idle. And all Israel was afraid,

² And Saul’s son had two men who were captains of bands: one called Baanah and the other called Rechab (the sons of Rimmon, a Beerothite of the children of Benjamin, for Beeroth was reckoned to Benjamin,

³ because the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and sojourned there to this day).

⁴ And Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame on his feet. He was five years old when the news of Saul and Jonathan came out of Israel. Then his nurse took him and fled away. And as she hurried to flee, the child fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.

⁵ And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went and came in the heat of the day to the House of Ishbosheth (who slept on a bed at noon).

⁶ And behold, Rechab and Baanah, his brother, came into the midst of the house, as though requesting wheat. And they struck him under the fifth rib and fled.

⁷ For when they came into the house, he slept on his bed in his bed chamber. And they struck him, and killed him, and beheaded him, and took his head and got away through the plain, all night.

⁸ And they brought the head of Ishbosheth to David, to Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold the head of Ishbosheth, Saul’s son, your enemy, who sought after your life. And the LORD has avenged my Lord the king of Saul and of his seed this day.”

⁹ Then David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As the LORD lives, Who has delivered my soul out of all adversity,

¹⁰ “when someone told me and said that Saul was dead (thinking to have brought good tidings), I took him and killed him in Ziklag, even while he thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings.

¹¹ “How much more then, when wicked men have killed a righteous person in his own house, upon his bed, shall I not now therefore require his blood at your hand and take you from the Earth?”

¹² Then David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the sepulcher of Abner, in Hebron.