¹And the son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, and his hands went slack, and all Israel was terrified.

²And the son of Saul had two men, captains of raiding bands; the name of the first was Baanah, and the name of the second Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the sons of Benjamin — for Beeroth too is reckoned to Benjamin,

³and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and have been sojourners there until this day.

⁴Now Jonathan the son of Saul had a son crippled in the feet. He was five years old when the report of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel; and his nurse lifted him up and fled, and it happened, in her panic to flee, that he fell and became lame; and his name was Mephibosheth.

⁵And the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went, and they came in the heat of the day to the house of Ish-bosheth, while he was lying down on the noonday bed.

⁶And they came right into the middle of the house, taking wheat, and struck him in the belly; and Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped away.

⁷And they came into the house, while he was lying on his bed in his bedchamber; and they struck him, and killed him, and removed his head; and they took his head, and went the way of the Arabah all night.

⁸And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron, and they said to the king, “Look, the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your living being; and Yahweh has given my lord the king vengeance this day from Saul and from his seed.”

⁹And David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As Yahweh lives, who has ransomed my living being from all distress,

¹⁰when the one who told me, saying, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and he was like a bearer of news in his own eyes, I took hold of him and killed him at Ziklag — that was how I gave him his reward for the news;

¹¹how much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house, on his own bed — and now, shall I not demand his blood from your hand and remove you from the land?”

¹²And David commanded the lads, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hung them up over the pool in Hebron. But the head of Ish-bosheth they took, and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.