After the rejection the narrative describes an evil spirit from the Lord troubling Saul, and the remedy his servants find is music. David is brought in to play the lyre, and the spirit lifts while he plays. The same spear Saul carries as a mark of office is twice thrown at the musician.
What follows is one of the most closely observed portraits of deterioration in ancient literature. Saul promises his daughters to David and withdraws them, sets a bride price designed to get him killed, orders his own son to kill him and is talked out of it, hunts him through the Judean wilderness, and massacres the priests of Nob for feeding him. Twice David has him at his mercy in a cave and by a camp fire, and twice lets him go, and both times Saul weeps and calls him son and goes home, and then resumes the pursuit.
The end comes on Mount Gilboa. His sons fall, he is hit by archers, and he asks his armour bearer to finish him; when the man will not, he falls on his own sword. The Philistines fasten the bodies to the wall of Beth-shan.
The last act belongs to Jabesh Gilead. Their city had been Saul's first rescue, at the very beginning of his reign, when he mustered Israel to save them from an Ammonite who intended to put out their right eyes. Their fighting men travel all night, take the bodies down from the wall, and bury them. Forty years later, whatever else had happened, the debt was still owed and they came and paid it.