7When the Israelites on the other side of the valley and the Jordan saw that Israel's army had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. Then the Philistines came and occupied them.
8The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.
9They cut off Saul's head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temples of their idols and among the people.
10They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth and hung his corpse on the wall of Beth-shan.
11When the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
12all their valiant men rose up, traveled through the night, and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They brought them to Jabesh and burned them there.
13Then they took their bones, buried them under a tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.