When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the wilderness near En-gedi.”

so they said to him, “Look, this is the day the Lord told you about: ‘I will hand your enemy over to you so you can do to him whatever you desire.’” Then David got up and secretly cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.

You yourself have told me today what good you did for me: when the Lord handed me over to you, you didn’t kill me.

In the morning when Nabal sobered up, his wife told him about these events. Then he had a seizure and became paralyzed.

The woman came over to Saul, and she saw that he was terrified and said to him, “Look, your servant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do.

The Philistine commanders, however, were enraged with Achish and told him, “Send that man back and let him return to the place you assigned him. He must not go down with us into battle only to become our adversary during the battle. What better way could he regain his master’s favor than with the heads of our men?

So Achish summoned David and told him, “As the Lord lives, you are an honorable man. I think it is good to have you working with me in the camp, because I have found no fault in you from the day you came to me until today. But the leaders don’t think you are reliable.

David slaughtered them from twilight until the evening of the next day. None of them escaped, except 400 young men who got on camels and fled.

He asked me, ‘Who are you?’ I told him: I’m an Amalekite.

Then the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. They told David: “It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul.”

when the person told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ he thought he was a bearer of good news, but I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was my reward to him for his news!

So Nathan told the king, “Go and do all that is on your heart, for the Lord is with you.”

David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this matter upset you because the sword devours all alike. Intensify your fight against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him.”

You acted in secret, but I will do this before all Israel and in broad daylight.’”

“Bring the meal to the bedroom,” Amnon told Tamar, “so I can eat from your hand.” Tamar took the cakes she had made and went to her brother Amnon’s bedroom.

So Joab sent someone to Tekoa to bring a clever woman from there. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning: dress in mourning clothes and don’t put on any oil. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time.

Go to the king and speak these words to him.” Then Joab told her exactly what to say.

The king told the woman, “Go home. I will issue a command on your behalf.”

The king asked, “Did Joab put you up to all this?”

The woman answered. “As you live, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or left from all my lord the king says. Yes, your servant Joab is the one who gave orders to me; he told your servant exactly what to say.

Joab went to the king and told him. So David summoned Absalom, who came to the king and bowed down with his face to the ground before him. Then the king kissed Absalom.

However, if He should say, ‘I do not delight in you,’ then here I am—He can do with me whatever pleases Him.”

The king replied, “Sons of Zeruiah, do we agree on anything? He curses me this way because the Lord told him, ‘Curse David!’ Therefore, who can say, ‘Why did you do that?’”

Then David said to Abishai and all his servants, “Look, my own son, my own flesh and blood, intends to take my life—how much more now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse me; the Lord has told him to.

So Hushai came to Absalom, and Absalom told him: “Ahithophel offered this proposal. Should we carry out his proposal? If not, what do you say?”

Hushai then told the priests Zadok and Abiathar, “This is what Ahithophel advised Absalom and the elders of Israel, and this is what I advised.

After they had gone, Ahimaaz and Jonathan climbed out of the well and went and informed King David. They told him, “Get up and immediately ford the river, for Ahithophel has given this advice against you.”

He called out and told the king.

The king said, “If he’s alone, he bears good news.”

As the first runner came closer,

So the king got up and sat in the gate, and all the people were told: “Look, the king is sitting in the gate.” Then they all came into the king’s presence.

Meanwhile, each Israelite had fled to his tent.

So Gad went to David, told him the choices, and asked him, “Do you want three years of famine to come on your land, to flee from your foes three months while they pursue you, or to have a plague in your land three days? Now, think it over and decide what answer I should take back to the One who sent me.”

It was reported to King Solomon: “Joab has fled to the Lord’s tabernacle and is now beside the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada and told him, “Go and strike him down!”

But I didn’t believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half. Your wisdom and prosperity far exceed the report I heard.

from the nations that the Lord had told the Israelites about, “Do not intermarry with them, and they must not intermarry with you, because they will turn you away from Me to their gods.” Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them.

Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to these people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins!

‘This is what the Lord says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you must return home, for I have done this.’”

So they listened to what the Lord said and went back as He had told them.

Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go disguise yourself, so they won’t know that you’re Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there; it was he who told about me becoming king over this people.

Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree.

Suddenly, an angel touched him. The angel told him, “Get up and eat.”

He told him, “Because you did not listen to the voice of the Lord, mark my words: When you leave me, a lion will kill you.” When he left him, a lion attacked and killed him.

So Ahab went to his palace resentful and angry because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had told him. He had said, “I will not give you my fathers’ inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned his face away, and didn’t eat any food.

“Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite,” he replied. “I told him: Give me your vineyard for silver, or if you wish, I will give you a vineyard in its place. But he said, ‘I won’t give you my vineyard!’”

So he went to the king, and the king asked him, “Micaiah, should we go to Ramoth-gilead for war, or should we refrain?”

Micaiah told him, “March up and succeed. Yahweh will hand it over to the king.”

She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debt; you and your sons can live on the rest.”

Suddenly he complained to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

When she came up to the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone—she is in severe anguish, and the Lord has hidden it from me. He hasn’t told me.”

Gehazi went ahead of them and placed the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or sign of life, so he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy didn’t wake up.”

So Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.

But his servants approached and said to him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”

Consequently, the king of Israel sent word to the place the man of God had told him about. The man of God repeatedly warned the king, so the king would be on his guard.

So the king said, “Go and see where he is, so I can send men to capture him.”

When he was told, “Elisha is in Dothan,”

So the diseased men got up at twilight to go to the Arameans’ camp. When they came to the camp’s edge, they discovered that there was not a single man there,

So they had gotten up and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents, horses, and donkeys. The camp was intact, and they had fled for their lives.

The diseased men went and called to the city’s gatekeepers and told them, “We went to the Aramean camp and no one was there—no human sounds. There was nothing but tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents were intact.”

So they followed them as far as the Jordan. They saw that the whole way was littered with clothes and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in their haste. The messengers returned and told the king.

When the king asked the woman, she told him the story. So the king appointed a court official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, along with all the income from the field from the day she left the country until now.”

Elisha came to Damascus while Ben-hadad king of Aram was sick, and the king was told, “The man of God has come here.”

Elisha told him, “Go say to him, ‘You are sure to recover.’ But the Lord has shown me that he is sure to die.”

Hazael left Elisha and went to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha say to you?”

He responded, “He told me you are sure to recover.”

So they went back and told him, and he said, “This fulfills the Lord’s word that He spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: ‘In the plot of land at Jezreel, the dogs will eat Jezebel’s flesh.

When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” the king said, “Pile them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning.”

Therefore, the Lord gave Israel a deliverer, and they escaped from the power of the Arameans. Then the people of Israel dwelt in their tents as before,

They served idols, although the Lord had told them, “You must not do this.”

Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.

Then he said, “What is this monument I see?”

The men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done to the altar at Bethel.”

Bilhah, Ezem, Tolad,

Then David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their relatives as singers and to have them raise their voices with joy accompanied by musical instruments—harps, lyres, and cymbals.

So Nathan told David, “Do all that is on your heart, for God is with you.”

Moreover, because of my delight in the house of my God, I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the house of my God over and above all that I’ve provided for the holy house:

But I didn’t believe their reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half of your great wisdom! You far exceed the report I heard.

Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins.

He told the people of Judah to seek the Lord God of their ancestors and to carry out the instruction and the commands.

People came and told Jehoshaphat, “A vast number from beyond the Dead Sea and from Edom has come to fight against you; they are already in Hazazon-tamar” (that is, En-gedi).

They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. Then he told the descendants of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

Then King Hezekiah and the officials told the Levites to sing praise to the Lord in the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with rejoicing and bowed down and worshiped.

He told the people who lived in Jerusalem to give a contribution for the priests and Levites so that they could devote their energy to the law of the Lord.

Hezekiah told them to prepare chambers in the Lord’s temple, and they prepared them.

He built the altar of the Lord and offered fellowship and thank offerings on it. Then he told Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Consequently, Hilkiah told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan.

Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book,” and Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.

But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, king of Judah? I have not come against you today but I am fighting another dynasty. God told me to hurry. Stop opposing God who is with me; don’t make Him destroy you!”

Cyrus told him, “Take these articles, put them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its original site.”

I did this because I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry and cavalry to protect us from enemies during the journey, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who abandon Him.”

and by the first day of the first month they had dealt with all the men who had married foreign women.

Please, Lord, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to that of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success today, and have compassion on him in the presence of this man.

At the time, I was the king’s cupbearer.

The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priests, nobles, officials, or the rest of those who would be doing the work.

I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me, and what the king had said to me.

They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and they were encouraged to do this good work.

You provided bread from heaven for their hunger;
You brought them water from the rock for their thirst.
You told them to go in and possess the land
You had sworn to give them.

You multiplied their descendants
like the stars of heaven
and brought them to the land
You told their ancestors to go in and take possession of it.

When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she told the king on Mordecai’s behalf.

When they had warned him day after day and he still would not listen to them, they told Haman to see if Mordecai’s actions would be tolerated, since he had told them he was a Jew.

Then the king told Haman, “The money and people are given to you to do with as you see fit.”

Mordecai told him everything that had happened as well as the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay the royal treasury for the slaughter of the Jews.

Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace.

Then Haman described for them his glorious wealth and his many sons. He told them all how the king had honored him and promoted him in rank over the other officials and the royal staff.

His wife Zeresh and all his friends told him, “Have them build a gallows 75 feet high. Ask the king in the morning to hang Mordecai on it. Then go to the banquet with the king and enjoy yourself.” The advice pleased Haman, so he had the gallows constructed.

Haman told the king, “For the man the king wants to honor:

The king told Haman, “Hurry, and do just as you proposed. Take a garment and a horse for Mordecai the Jew, who is sitting at the King’s Gate. Do not leave out anything you have suggested.”

Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened. His advisers and his wife Zeresh said to him, “Since Mordecai is Jewish, and you have begun to fall before him, you won’t overcome him, because your downfall is certain.”

“Very well,” the Lord told Satan, “everything he owns is in your power. However, you must not lay a hand on Job himself.” So Satan left the Lord’s presence.