¹¹ And they said to him, What are we to do to you so that the sea may become calm for us? For the sea was getting rougher and rougher.

² And the Philistines sent for the priests and those who were wise in secret arts, and said to them, What are we to do with the ark of the Lord? How are we to send it away to its place?

³ And they said, If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it without an offering, but send him a sin-offering with it: then you will have peace again, and it will be clear to you why the weight of his hand has not been lifted from you.

¹ In the days of David they were short of food for three years, year after year; and David went before the Lord for directions. And the Lord said, On Saul and on his family there is blood, because he put the Gibeonites to death.

² Then the king sent for the Gibeonites; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but were the last of the Amorites, to whom the children of Israel had given an oath; but Saul, in his passion for the children of Israel and Judah, had made an attempt on their lives:)

³ So David said to the Gibeonites, What may I do for you? how am I to make up to you for your wrongs, so that you may give a blessing to the heritage of the Lord?

⁴ And the Gibeonites said to him, It is not a question of silver and gold between us and Saul or his family; and it is not in our power to put to death any man in Israel. And he said, Say, then, what am I to do for you?

⁵ And they said to the king, As for the man by whom we were wasted, and who made designs against us to have us completely cut off from the land of Israel,

⁶ Let seven men of his family be given up to us and we will put an end to them by hanging them before the Lord in Gibeon, on the hill of the Lord. And the king said, I will give them.

¹¹ And David got up in the morning; now the word of the Lord had come to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

¹² Go and say to David, The Lord says, Three things are offered to you: say which of them you will have, and I will do it to you.

¹³ So Gad came to David, and gave him word of this and said to him, Are there to be three years when there is not enough food in your land? or will you go in flight from your haters for three months, while they go after you? or will you have three days of violent disease in your land? take thought and say what answer I am to give to him who sent me.

⁶ With what am I to come before the Lord and go with bent head before the high God? am I to come before him with burned offerings, with young oxen a year old?

⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of sheep or with ten thousand rivers of oil? am I to give my first child for my wrongdoing, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?