“Please, my lord,” she said, “as sure as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord.

“Look,” the attendant said, “there’s a man of God in this city who is highly respected; everything he says is sure to come true. Let’s go there now. Maybe he’ll tell us which way we should go.”

Formerly in Israel, a man who was going to inquire of God would say, “Come, let’s go to the seer,” for the prophet of today was formerly called the seer.

As they were climbing the hill to the city, they found some young women coming out to draw water and asked, “Is the seer here?”

Saul approached Samuel in the gate area and asked, “Would you please tell me where the seer’s house is?”

“I am the seer,” Samuel answered. “Go up ahead of me to the high place and eat with me today. When I send you off in the morning, I’ll tell you everything that’s in your heart.

However, Jonathan had not heard his father make the troops swear the oath. He reached out with the end of the staff he was carrying and dipped it into the honeycomb. When he ate the honey, he had renewed energy.

Then, one of the troops said, “Your father made the troops solemnly swear, ‘The man who eats food today is cursed,’ and the troops are exhausted.”

Saul listened to Jonathan’s advice and swore an oath: “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be killed.”

But David said, “Your father certainly knows that you have come to look favorably on me. He has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or else he will be grieved.’” David also swore, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”

Jonathan once again swore to David in his love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.

David answered him, “I swear that women are being kept from us, as always when I go out to battle. The young men’s bodies are consecrated even on an ordinary mission, so of course their bodies are consecrated today.”

Then David said to Abiathar, “I knew that Doeg the Edomite was there that day and that he was sure to report to Saul. I myself am responsible for the lives of everyone in your father’s family.

He said to his men, “I swear before the Lord: I would never do such a thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed. I will never lift my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.”

Therefore swear to me by the Lord that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family.”

So David swore to Saul. Then Saul went back home, and David and his men went up to the stronghold.

Then David asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, “Who will go with me into the camp to Saul?”

“I’ll go with you,” answered Abishai.

Then Saul swore to her by the Lord: “As surely as the Lord lives, nothing bad will happen to you because of this.”

David then asked him, “Will you lead me to these raiders?”

He said, “Swear to me by God that you won’t kill me or turn me over to my master, and I will lead you to them.”