¹Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel. The men of Israel fled from the Philistines and many of them fell dead on Mount Gilboa. ²The Philistines stayed right on the heels of Saul and his sons. They struck down Saul’s sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua. ³Saul himself was in the thick of the battle; the archers spotted him and wounded him severely. ⁴Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and stab me with it! Otherwise these uncircumcised people will come, stab me, and torture me.” But his armor-bearer refused to do it, because he was very afraid. So Saul took his sword and fell on it.⁵When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his own sword and died with him.⁶So Saul, his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all his men died together that day. ⁷When the men of Israel who were in the valley and across the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled. The Philistines came and occupied them.⁸The next day, when the Philistines came to strip loot from the corpses, they discovered Saul and his three sons lying dead on Mount Gilboa. ⁹They cut off Saul’s head and stripped him of his armor. They sent messengers to announce the news in the temple of their idols and among their people throughout the surrounding land of the Philistines. ¹⁰They placed Saul’s armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and hung his corpse on the city wall of Beth Shan. ¹¹When the residents of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, ¹²all their warriors set out and traveled throughout the night. They took Saul’s corpse and the corpses of his sons from the city wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. ¹³They took the bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh; then they fasted for seven days.