1 Samuel 1

1 There was a man from Ramathaim Sipha, from the hill country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah son of Jerahmeel, son of Elihu, son of Toke, in Nasib of Ephraim. [a] 2 He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the second was Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no child. 3 Year after year that man would go up from his city, from Ramathaim, to bow down to the Lord, the God of armies, and to sacrifice to him, at Shiloh. And Eli was there, and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord. [b]

4 And the day came, and Elkanah sacrificed, and he gave shares to Peninnah his wife and to her sons and her daughters; 5 but to Hannah he gave one share, because she had no child. Yet Elkanah loved Hannah more than Peninnah, and the Lord had closed her womb. [c] 6 For the Lord gave her no child, in her affliction and in the low spirits of her affliction; and she was in low spirits because of it, that the Lord had shut up her womb and would not give her a child. 7 So it went year by year, whenever she went up to the house of the Lord: she was in low spirits, and she wept, and she would not eat.

8 And Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah.” And she said to him, “Here I am, my lord.” And he said to her, “What is it with you, that you weep? And why do you not eat? And why does your heart strike you? Am I not better to you than ten children?”

9 And Hannah got up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and she stood before the Lord; and Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the doorposts of the temple of the Lord. 10 She was bitter in soul, and she prayed to the Lord and wept and wept. 11 And she vowed a vow to the Lord, saying, “My Master, Lord, God of armies, if you will truly look on the humiliation of your slave, and remember me, and give your slave a son, then I will give him to you, a gift, until the day of his death; and he will drink no wine or strong drink, and no iron will come on his head.” [d] †

12 And as she went on praying a long while before the Lord, Eli the priest watched her mouth; 13 and she was speaking in her heart, and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard, and Eli took her for a drunken woman. † 14 And Eli’s servant said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you, and go out from before the Lord.” [e]

15 And Hannah answered and said, “No, my lord. I am a woman whose day is hard, and I have not drunk wine or strong drink; I am pouring out my soul before the Lord. 16 Do not take your slave for a worthless woman, for it is out of the greatness of my complaint that I have kept on until now.” 17 And Eli answered and said to her, “Go in peace. May the God of Israel grant you all your petition, which you have asked of him.” 18 And she said, “Your slave has found favor in your eyes.” And the woman went her way and came to her lodging, and ate with her husband and drank; and her face was downcast no longer.

19 And they rose early in the morning and bowed down to the Lord, and they went on their way. And Elkanah came into his house at Ramathaim and knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. 20 And she conceived. And when the time of her days came, she bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, and said, “Because I asked him from the Lord, the God of armies.” [f]

21 And the man Elkanah went up, and all his household, to sacrifice at Shiloh the yearly sacrifice, and his vows, and all the tenths of his land. 22 But Hannah did not go up with him, for she said to her husband, “Not until the boy goes up — when I have weaned him. Then he will be seen before the Lord, and he will stay there always.” 23 And Elkanah her husband said to her, “Do what is good in your eyes. Stay until you have weaned him. Only, may the Lord establish what has come out of your mouth.” And the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

24 And she went up with him to Shiloh with a three-year-old bull, and loaves, and about six gallons of fine flour, and a skin of wine; and she came into the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and the boy with them. [g] 25 And they brought him before the Lord; and his father slaughtered the sacrifice that he made to the Lord from year to year, and he brought the boy near, and he slaughtered the bull. And Hannah the boy’s mother brought him to Eli, 26 and she said, “Please, my lord — as surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. 27 It was for this boy that I prayed, and the Lord has given me my request that I asked of him. 28 And now I lend him to the Lord for all the days that he lives — a loan to the Lord.” [h]