1 Samuel 12

²⁴Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

¹⁴Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingship there.”

¹⁵So all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and Saul and all the Israelites rejoiced greatly.

¹Then Samuel took a flask of oil, poured it on Saul’s head, kissed him, and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over His inheritance?

¹⁹Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We must have a king over us.

²⁰Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles.”

⁵“Look,” they said, “you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”

⁶But when they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” their demand was displeasing in the sight of Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord.

⁵“Look,” they said, “you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”

²⁰Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles.”

¹When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel.

¹⁷who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

³But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside toward dishonest gain, accepting bribes and perverting justice.

¹⁹And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and He let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.

²⁰So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

³³I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing.

¹⁵Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not regard their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them or mistreated a single one of them.”

¹⁹Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

⁶So he said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed. May I never lift my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.”

²Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness;

⁵Samuel said to them, “The Lord is a witness against you, and His anointed is a witness today, that you have not found anything in my hand.” “He is a witness,” they replied.

¹²Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true.

⁵Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will do it.

⁶He will bring forth your righteousness like the dawn, your justice like the noonday sun.

⁴Thus the administrators and satraps sought a charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no charge or corruption, because he was trustworthy, and no negligence or corruption was found in him.

⁴If what was stolen is actually found alive in his possession—whether ox or donkey or sheep—he must pay back double.

²⁰Otherwise, let these men state for themselves any crime they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin,

⁹A great clamor arose, and some scribes from the party of the Pharisees got up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”

¹²For this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God—not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God.

⁴My conscience is clear, but that does not vindicate me. It is the Lord who judges me.

⁷After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, He said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends. For you have not spoken about Me accurately, as My servant Job has.

⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses before you, as well as Aaron and Miriam.

²⁶It was this Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their divisions.”

⁶Moses and Aaron were among His priests; Samuel was among those who called on His name. They called to the Lord and He answered.

¹⁹Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, but Your footprints were not to be found.

²⁰You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

⁴¹He opened a rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.

⁷I will make known the Lord’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the Lord has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion.

⁸For He said, “They are surely My people, sons who will not be disloyal.” So He became their Savior.

¹⁸“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.

³explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,” he declared.

¹Hear now what the Lord says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

²Hear, O mountains, the Lord’s indictment, you enduring foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against His people, and He will argue it against Israel:

³“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard.

⁴What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?

²⁵Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is it My way that is unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

²⁶If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, he will die for this. He will die because of the iniquity he has committed.

¹¹the voices of the singers at the watering places. There they shall recount the righteous acts of the Lord, the righteous deeds of His villagers in Israel. Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates:

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

¹⁵You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do.

²³After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

²⁴So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁸and said to the Israelites, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hands of the Egyptians and of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’

⁵Then Jacob departed from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel took their father Jacob in the wagons Pharaoh had sent to carry him, along with their children and wives.

⁶They also took the livestock and possessions they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and Jacob and all his offspring went to Egypt.

⁹And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen how severely the Egyptians are oppressing them.

¹⁰Therefore, go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

¹⁵So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died.

²So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

⁷So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites,

¹²Once again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. So He gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

¹⁸You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

⁷So the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

⁸Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.

¹³for they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

¹⁰Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against You, for we have indeed forsaken our God and served the Baals.”

⁷So the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

¹⁵“We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the Lord. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!”

¹⁶So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

⁹But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, He raised up Othniel son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz as a deliverer to save them.

⁷Now when the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian,

³²So on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he had torn down Baal’s altar.

⁶She summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “Surely the Lord, the God of Israel, is commanding you: ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, taking with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun.

¹⁴The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Am I not sending you?”

³⁵They did not show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he had done for Israel.

¹³So the Philistines were subdued, and they stopped invading the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

¹Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.

²And Gilead’s wife bore him sons who grew up, drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, because you are the son of another woman.”

²³But Gideon replied, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The Lord shall rule over you.”

⁵“Look,” they said, “you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”

⁶But when they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” their demand was displeasing in the sight of Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord.

⁷I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

¹⁹But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions, and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and clans.”

¹Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.”

²But Nahash the Ammonite replied, “I will make a treaty with you on one condition, that I may put out everyone’s right eye and bring reproach upon all Israel.”

⁵⁶In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.

⁵⁷And God also brought all the wickedness of the men of Shechem back upon their own heads. So the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal came upon them.

¹¹So in My anger I gave you a king, and in My wrath I took him away.

²⁴Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

⁵“Look,” they said, “you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”

²⁰As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, do not worry about them, for they have been found. And upon whom is all the desire of Israel, if not upon you and all your father’s house?”

¹⁵So all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and Saul and all the Israelites rejoiced greatly.

²⁹So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

¹⁴Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

¹“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

²And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of the Lord your God:

²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and consume you, even after He has been good to you.”

¹²So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

¹³If only My people would listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways,

¹⁰Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their labor.

¹Then the Lord said to Moses,

²“Tell the Israelites, ‘Any Israelite or foreigner living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the land are to stone him.

²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and consume you, even after He has been good to you.”

²⁰But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

⁹But they forgot the Lord their God, and He sold them into the hand of Sisera the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.

¹¹Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

¹⁴If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments,

¹⁵and if you reject My statutes, despise My ordinances, and neglect to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant,

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹³But Moses told the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the Lord’s salvation, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

³¹When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.

⁷Now present yourselves, so that I may confront you before the Lord with all the righteous acts He has done for you and your fathers.

¹⁶“Stop!” exclaimed Samuel. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied.

⁷And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king.

⁹Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord answered him.

¹⁰As the Philistines drew near to fight against Israel, Samuel was offering up the burnt offering. But that day the Lord thundered loudly against the Philistines and threw them into such confusion that they fled before Israel.

¹Like snow in summer and rain at harvest, honor does not befit a fool.

¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

¹⁷Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

⁶Moses and Aaron were among His priests; Samuel was among those who called on His name. They called to the Lord and He answered.

¹²On the day that the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

³¹When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.

⁹So within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled in Jerusalem, and on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling regarding this matter and because of the heavy rain.

²³So Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning struck the earth. So the Lord rained down hail upon the land of Egypt.

²⁴The hail fell and the lightning continued flashing through it. The hail was so severe that nothing like it had ever been seen in all the land of Egypt from the time it became a nation.

¹²Then they believed His promises and sang His praise.

¹³Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.

⁵If anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone who wants to harm them must be killed.

⁶These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.

²⁸Pray to the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go; you do not need to stay any longer.”

¹⁶If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he should ask God, who will give life to those who commit this kind of sin. There is a sin that leads to death; I am not saying he should ask regarding that sin.

²³As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you. And I will continue to teach you the good and right way.

¹⁷Now please forgive my sin once more and appeal to the Lord your God, that He may remove this death from me.”

⁵Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord on your behalf.”

²⁴Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me, so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

¹⁶But be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside to worship and bow down to other gods,

⁶Be very strong, then, so that you can keep and obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, not turning aside from it to the right or to the left.

³I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.

⁵But those who turn to crooked ways the Lord will banish with the evildoers. Peace be upon Israel.

¹⁶keeping a clear conscience, so that those who slander you may be put to shame by your good behavior in Christ.

¹“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the Lord.

¹⁸What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

¹⁹O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

¹⁵They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

¹⁶But be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside to worship and bow down to other gods,

²²Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O Lord our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.

²⁰Come, gather together, and draw near, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry idols of wood and pray to a god that cannot save.

²for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.

⁸Yet He saved them for the sake of His name, to make His power known.

⁶being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

¹³And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.”

²¹For the sake of Your name do not despise us; do not disgrace Your glorious throne. Remember Your covenant with us; do not break it.

⁹When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do for Your great name?”

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

⁹God, whom I serve with my spirit in preaching the gospel of His Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you

³I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience as did my forefathers, as I constantly remember you night and day in my prayers.

¹⁰Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith.

³⁶then may You hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, so that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk. May You send rain on the land that You gave Your people as an inheritance.

⁵So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.

²¹He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen.

⁷The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

¹²At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the Lord and fail to see the work of His hands.

²⁹“For our God is a consuming fire.”

²Then our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

³The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

¹³When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.

²⁰If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you and consume you, even after He has been good to you.”

³Surely now they will say, “We have no king, for we do not revere the Lord. What can a king do for us?”

³⁶The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

¹Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

²The Philistines hotly pursued Saul and his sons, and they killed Saul’s sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua.

¹¹Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.