Fleeing

When all the Israelites who had been hiding in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they also joined the battle in close pursuit.

Then the king ordered the guards at his side, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because they too sided with David. For they knew he was fleeing, but they did not tell me.” But the king’s servants would not lift a hand to strike the priests of the LORD.

So they returned to the city quietly that day, as people steal away in humiliation after fleeing a battle.

So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

By His breath the skies were cleared; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.

In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

Egypt will hiss like a fleeing serpent, for the enemy will advance in force; with axes they will come against her like woodsmen cutting down trees.

Stand by the road and watch, O dweller of Aroer! Ask the man fleeing or the woman escaping, ‘What has happened?’

Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What have you done?” The men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.