These six were born to David in Hebron; he reigned there seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years.

These were the potters and those who lived [among plantations and hedges] at Netaim and Gederah; they lived there with the king for his work.

These were their villages: Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Tochen, and Ashan—five cities—

They found rich, good pasture, and the [cleared] land was wide, quiet, and peaceful; for those who had lived there previously came from Ham [and had left it a better place for those who came after them].

These, registered by name, came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and they attacked their tents and the Meunites (foreigners) who were found there, and utterly destroyed them to this day; and they settled in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks.

They destroyed the remnant of the Amalekites who escaped, and they have lived there to this day (the date of this writing).

Now these are those whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the Lord after the ark [of the covenant] rested there.

So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and David made a covenant (solemn agreement) with them there before the Lord; and they anointed him king over Israel, in accordance with the word of the Lord through Samuel.

He was with David at Pasdammim [where David had killed Goliath] and there the Philistines were gathered together for battle, and there was a plot of ground full of barley; and the people [of Israel] fled before the Philistines.

Courageous men from the Gadites came over to David in the stronghold in the wilderness, men trained for war, who could handle shield and spear, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and who were swift as gazelles on the mountains.

Then some of the men of Benjamin and Judah came to the stronghold to David.

David went out to meet them and said to them, “If you have come peacefully to me to help me, my heart shall be united with you; but if you have come to betray me to my adversaries, since there is no violence or wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look on [what you are doing] and punish [you].”

As David went to Ziklag, these men defected to him from Manasseh: Adnah, Jozabad, Jediael, Michael, Jozabad, Elihu, and Zillethai, captains of thousands who belonged to Manasseh.

For day by day men kept coming to David to help him, until there was a great army, like the army of God.

They were there with David for three days, eating and drinking, for their relatives had prepared for them.

Also those who were [living] near them [from] as far as [the tribes of] Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali, brought food on donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen, abundant supplies of flour, cakes of figs and raisins, wine, [olive] oil, oxen, and sheep, for there was joy in Israel.

David and all Israel went up to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim, which belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord who sits enthroned above the cherubim, the ark which is called by His name.

The anger of the Lord burned against Uzza, and He struck him down because he touched the ark; and there he died before God.

So Israel came up to Baal-perazim, and David defeated the Philistines there. Then David said, “God has broken through my enemies by my hand, like the breakthrough of waters.” Therefore they named that place Baal-perazim.

The Philistines abandoned their gods (idols) there; so David gave a command and they were burned in a fire [as the Law of Moses required].

O Lord, there is no one like You, nor is there any God except You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

Now it came about after this that war broke out at Gezer with the Philistines; then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai, one of the descendants of the giants, and they were subdued.

There was war again with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

Again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot; and he also was descended from the giants.

So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell.

Then David built an altar to the Lord there and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. And he called on the Lord, and He answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.

Since there were more chief men found among the descendants of Eleazar than among the descendants of Ithamar [because of Eli’s misfortunes, and Saul’s massacre of the priests at Nob], they were divided in this way: sixteen heads of fathers’ households of the descendants of Eleazar and eight of the descendants of Ithamar, corresponding to their fathers’ households.

So they were divided by lot, one group with the other; for they were officers of the sanctuary and officers (high priests) of God, both from the descendants of Eleazar and from the descendants of Ithamar.

At the colonnade on the west side [of the outer court of the temple] there were four at the road and two at the colonnade.

For we are sojourners before You, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope [of remaining].