²⁰ Now Saul’s daughter Michal^(A) was in love with David, and when they told Saul about it, he was pleased.^(B)

²⁷ David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal^(A) in marriage.

¹¹ Saul sent men to David’s house to watch^(A) it and to kill him in the morning.^(B) But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” ¹² So Michal let David down through a window,^(C) and he fled and escaped. ¹³ Then Michal took an idol^(D) and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head.

¹⁴ When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said,^(E) “He is ill.”

¹⁵ Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.” ¹⁶ But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats’ hair.

¹⁷ Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?”

Michal told him, “He said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’”

¹³ “Good,” said David. “I will make an agreement with you. But I demand one thing of you: Do not come into my presence unless you bring Michal daughter of Saul when you come to see me.”^(A)

¹⁴ Then David sent messengers to Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, demanding, “Give me my wife Michal,^(A) whom I betrothed to myself for the price of a hundred Philistine foreskins.”

¹⁶ As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David,^(A) Michal^(B) daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.

²⁰ When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked^(A) in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

²¹ David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed^(B) me ruler^(C) over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. ²² I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

²³ And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.