1 Samuel

1 Samuel 2

Hannah’s Song

1 And Hannah said:

“My heart is made firm in the Lord;

my horn is lifted high in my God.

My mouth is opened wide against my enemies;

I have rejoiced in your rescue.

2 For there is none holy as the Lord,

and there is none righteous as our God;

there is none holy but you.

3 Do not boast, and do not speak proud things;

let no big words come out of your mouth.

For the Lord is a God of knowledge,

and a God who makes ready what he means to do.

4 The bow of the strong has gone weak,

and the weak are belted with strength.

5 Those who were full of bread have been brought low,

and the hungry have left the land behind.

The barren woman has borne seven,

and the woman with many children has gone weak.

6 The Lord kills and brings to life;

he brings down to Hades and brings up again.

7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich;

he brings low and he lifts high.

8 He raises the needy up from the ground

and lifts the poor out of the dung heap,

to seat him with the rulers of the peoples,

giving them a throne of glory to inherit.

9 He grants the prayer of the one who prays,

and he has blessed the years of the righteous;

for a man does not prevail by strength.

10 The Lord will make his opponent weak;

the Lord is holy.

Let not the wise boast in his wisdom,

and let not the strong boast in his strength,

and let not the rich boast in his riches;

but let the one who boasts boast in this:

to understand and to know the Lord,

and to do judgment and righteousness in the middle of the earth.

The Lord has gone up to the heavens and has thundered;

he himself will judge the ends of the earth.

He gives strength to our kings,

and he will lift high the horn of his anointed one.”

11 And they left him there before the Lord and went away to Ramathaim; and the boy stayed, serving before the face of the Lord, in the presence of Eli the priest.

The Sons of Eli

12 And the sons of Eli the priest were worthless sons, who did not know the Lord. 13 And this was the priest’s claim on the people, on everyone who sacrificed: the priest’s servant would come while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand, 14 and he would stab it into the big cauldron, or into the bronze pan, or into the pot; and whatever came up on the fork, the priest took for himself. This is what they did to all Israel, to everyone who came to sacrifice to the Lord at Shiloh.

15 And before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give me meat to roast for the priest. I will not take boiled meat from you out of the cauldron.” 16 And the man who was sacrificing would say, “Let the fat be burned first, as it should be, and then take for yourself whatever your soul desires.” And he would say, “No — you will give it to me now; and if you do not, I will take it by force.” 17 So the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, because they treated the Lord’s sacrifice as nothing.

The Boy in the Linen Ephod

18 And Samuel was serving before the Lord — a boy wearing a linen ephod. 19 And his mother made him a little robe and brought it up to him year after year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20 And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, saying, “May the Lord pay you back with children by this woman, in return for the loan you lent to the Lord.” And the man went back to his own place, 21 and the Lord visited Hannah, and she bore three more sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew up before the Lord.

22 Now Eli was very old, and he heard what his sons were doing to the children of Israel, 23 and he said to them, “Why are you doing a thing like this, which I hear about from the mouth of all the Lord’s people? 24 No, my children — the report I hear is not good. Do not do this, for the reports I hear are not good, and they keep the people from serving God. 25 If a man sins against another man, then they will pray for him to the Lord; but if a man sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?” But they did not listen to the voice of their father, because the Lord was determined to destroy them. 26 And the boy Samuel went on and grew, and he was good both with the Lord and with people.

A Man of God Comes to Eli

27 And a man of God came to Eli and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I revealed myself plainly to the house of your father when they were in the land of Egypt, slaves to the house of Pharaoh, 28 and I chose the house of your father out of all the tribes of Israel to serve me as priests, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to carry the ephod. And I gave to the house of your father everything the children of Israel offer in the fire, for food. 29 So why have you looked on my incense and my sacrifice with a shameless eye, and honored your sons above me, so that they bless themselves with the first portion of every sacrifice of Israel in front of me? 30 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I said, “Your house and the house of your father will walk before me forever.” But now the Lord says: Far be it from me. I will honor those who honor me, and whoever treats me as nothing will be treated as nothing.

31 Look, the days are coming when I will destroy your offspring and the offspring of your father’s house, 32 and you will not have an old man in my house, ever. 33 And I will not destroy every man of yours from my altar — only so that his eyes may fail and his soul drain away; and everyone left over in your house will fall by the sword of men. 34 And this will be the sign to you, which will come upon these two sons of yours, Hophni and Phinehas: in one day the two of them will die. 35 And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do everything that is in my heart and in my soul; and I will build him a faithful house, and he will walk before my anointed one all his days. 36 And whoever is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a fiftieth of an ounce of silver, saying, “Put me into one of your priestly duties, so that I can eat bread.”’”