7 So David and Abishai approached the troops at night and found Saul lying there, asleep in the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the army were sleeping all around him.
8 Abishai said to David, "God has handed your enemy over to you today! Let me pin him to the ground with my spear. One stroke is all I need! I won’t need a second."
9 But David said to Abishai, "Don’t kill him! No one can lift a hand against the Lord’s anointed and go unpunished.
10 As surely as the Lord lives," David continued, "it will be the Lord who will strike him down, or his day will come and he will die, or he’ll fall in battle and be destroyed.
11 The Lord forbid that I lift my hand against the Lord’s anointed! But go ahead and take the spear by Saul’s head and the water jug and let’s go!"
12 So David took the spear and the water jug that were by Saul’s head, and he and Abishai left. No one saw them, no one knew they were there, and no one woke up. All of them remained asleep because a deep sleep from the Lord had come over them.
13 David crossed over to the other side and stood on top of a hill with considerable distance between them.