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20 David now fled from Naioth in Ramah and found Jonathan.

“What have I done?” he exclaimed. “Why is your father so determined to kill me?”

“That’s not true!” Jonathan protested. “I’m sure he’s not planning any such thing, for he always tells me everything he’s going to do, even little things, and I know he wouldn’t hide something like this from me. It just isn’t so.”

“Of course you don’t know about it!” David fumed. “Your father knows perfectly well about our friendship, so he has said to himself, ‘I’ll not tell Jonathan—why should I hurt him?’ But the truth is that I am only a step away from death! I swear it by the Lord and by your own soul!”

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David and Jonathan

20 Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged(A) your father, that he is trying to kill me?”(B)

“Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me? It isn’t so!”

But David took an oath(C) and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”

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