David is a shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse. When his seven older brothers head off to join King Saul in a battle with the Philistines, David is left behind to look after the sheep. When Jesse sends David to find out how his brothers are, David discovers that the whole Israelite army is terrified of the Philistine's giant hero, Goliath. But David knows that God is with him and decides to take matters into his own hands.
This is a story about a boy called David. David had 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers and they all lived in a land called Israel with their dad, whose name was Jesse. Now one day some people from another land picked a fight with the King of Israel, so David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers went off to help the king win the war, but they left David at home.
“You're too small to fight in the army squirt!” they said, “You stay here and look after the sheep – baa!”
You see, David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers thought that looking after sheep was a boring job, but David knew better! Sometimes lions and bears would try to eat the sheep – ROAR! – and David would chase them away, and when there weren't any lions or bears David would sing songs to God to tell him how much he loved him.
When David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers had been away for a long time, their father Jesse began to worry about them. So he gave David some bread and some cheese and sent him off to find them.
David walked down paths, he ran through fields and he swam across rivers until at last he found his 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers and all their friends and the King of Israel camping on a hill by a stream. On the other side of the stream was another hill and there were the people from another land, but there wasn't any fighting going on.
“What's all this?” asked David, “Why aren't you fighting our enemies?” David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers looked very frightened. They pointed across the stream to the other hill and whispered “G-G-G-G-Goliath!” David looked where they were pointing, but all he could see were two hairy trees. “Wait a minute,” thought David, “those aren't trees, those are ... giant legs!” David looked up and saw two giant knees; he looked up some more and saw a giant belt; he looked up even further and saw a giant chest and then he looked up as far as he could and saw a giant face. It was the biggest man that David had ever seen. “That's Goliath,” said David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers.
At that very moment, Goliath opened his giant mouth and began to roar. “Come on you cowards. I dare you, I dare you to fight me, I dare anyone to fight me! Or are you chicken? Cluck, cluck, cluck, CLUCK!”
On David's side of the stream nobody moved, they were all too scared.
“What's the matter with you lot?” David asked his 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers, “Don't you know that God is on our side, and God is even bigger than Goliath? If you ask me that giant is too big for his boots. Well I'm not going to let him get away with it!”
When the King of Israel heard what David was saying he sent for him at once. “Now listen,” the king began, “You can't fight this man, you're only a boy!”
“I'm not afraid, your majesty,” David told him, “I've been looking after my father's sheep and whenever lions and bears tried to steal them, God helped me to fight them off. I know God will help me to beat Goliath too.”
“Well, if you're sure,” said the king, “But take my armour and my helmet and my sword to protect you.”
But the king's armour was too big for David and with the helmet on his head and the sword around his waist he could hardly move, so he took them off and left them behind as he marched down the hill to meet Goliath. On the way, he stopped at the stream, picked five smooth stones from the water and put them into his shepherd's bag.
When Goliath saw David coming he began to laugh, “Is that the best you can do? You send a little boy to fight a mighty warrior like me? Pathetic! I'll eat him for breakfast!”
But David wasn't scared. In his hand he was holding his shepherd's sling – it was like a rope belt with a pocket in the middle just the right size for a stone. David reached into his bag and pulled out one of the stones he'd taken from the stream. He popped it into the pocket and began to swing the sling around and around above his head. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 – the stone whizzed through the air and hit the giant right in the middle of his forehead! Goliath opened his eyes wide ... and fell down dead!
David's 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 big brothers and all their friends and the King of Israel cheered and cheered, and when the people from another land saw that their giant had been killed, they just ran away!
That evening, the King of Israel sent for David again. “Jolly well done young man!” he said, “But how could you be so sure that God would help you?”
“Well, your majesty” David replied, “I'm a shepherd and I always look after my sheep and I reckon God's my shepherd and he'll always look after me!”