Abigail

One of the servants told Nabal's wife Abigail:
"David sent messengers from the desert
to give our master his greetings,
but he hurled insults at them.
Yet these men were very good to us.
They did not mistreat us,
and the whole time we were out in the fields near them
nothing was missing.
Night and day they were a wall around us
all the time we were herding our sheep near them.
Now think it over and see what you can do,
because disaster is hanging over our master
and his whole household.
He is such a wicked man
that no one can talk to him.

Abigail lost no time.
She took two hundred loaves of bread,
two skins of wine,
five dressed sheep,
five seahs of roasted grain,
a hundred cakes of pressed figs,
and loaded them on donkeys.
Then she told her servants,
"Go on ahead; I'll follow you."
But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

. . . When Abigail saw David,
she quickly got off her donkey
and bowed down before David with her face to the ground.
She fell at his feet and said:
"My lord, let the blame be on me alone.
Please let your servant speak to you;
hear what your servant has to say.
May my lord pay no attention to that wicked man Nabal.
He is just like his name - his name is Fool,
and folly goes with him.
But as for me, your servant,
I did not see the men my master sent."

. . . Then David accepted from her hand
what she had brought him and said,
"Go home in peace.
I have heard your words and granted your request."

When Abigail went to Nabal,
he was in the house holding a banquet like that of a king.
He was in high spirits and very drunk.
So she told him nothing until daybreak.
Then in the morning,
when Nabal was sober,
his wife told him all these things,
and his heart failed him
and he became like a stone.
About ten days later,
the Lord struck Nabal and he died.

When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said,
"Praise be to the Lord,
who has upheld my cause against Nabal
for treating me with contempt.
He has kept his servant from doing wrong
and has brought Nabal's wrongdoing
down on his own head."

Then David sent word to Abigail,
asking her to become his wife.

(I Samuel 25:14-20, 23-25, 35-40)