1 Samuel 15

¹⁶“At this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you are to anoint him ruler over My people Israel; he will save them from the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked upon My people, because their cry has come to Me.”

¹⁴If you fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice, and if you do not rebel against the command of the Lord, and if both you and the king who rules over you follow the Lord your God, then all will be well.

¹²Above all, may the Lord give you insight and understanding when He puts you in command over Israel, so that you may keep the Law of the Lord your God.

¹³Then you will succeed, if you carefully follow the statutes and ordinances that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

¹³“You have acted foolishly,” Samuel declared. “You have not kept the command that the Lord your God gave you; if you had, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

¹⁰Therefore be wise, O kings; be admonished, O judges of the earth.

¹¹Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

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

¹⁷And Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, have you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel

¹⁷Remember what the Amalekites did to you along your way from Egypt,

¹⁸how they met you on your journey when you were tired and weary, and they attacked all your stragglers; they had no fear of God.

²⁰Then Balaam saw Amalek and lifted up an oracle, saying: “Amalek was first among the nations, but his end is destruction.”

⁸After this, the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim.

⁹So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop with the staff of God in my hand.”

²But they fail to consider in their hearts that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds are all around them; they are before My face.

⁷The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

¹⁶However, in the cities of the nations that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.

¹⁷For you must devote them to complete destruction—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you,

²⁰Then Balaam saw Amalek and lifted up an oracle, saying: “Amalek was first among the nations, but his end is destruction.”

²¹Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities.

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the Lord.

¹⁹He also put to the sword Nob, the city of the priests, with its men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep.

¹⁷So now, kill all the boys, as well as every woman who has had relations with a man,

¹⁷Now the city and everything in it must be devoted to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent.

¹⁸But keep away from the things devoted to destruction, lest you yourself be set apart for destruction. If you take any of these, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and bring disaster upon it.

²⁴Ziph, Telem, Bealoth,

⁸And when Saul numbered them at Bezek, there were 300,000 Israelites and 30,000 men of Judah.

¹⁵Then Samuel set out from Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin. And Saul numbered the troops who were with him, about six hundred men.

¹⁶Now the descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenite, went up with the men of Judah from the City of Palms to the Wilderness of Judah in the Negev near Arad. They went to live among the people.

²⁹Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Moses’ father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, “We are setting out for the place of which the Lord said: ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel.”

³⁰“I will not go,” Hobab replied. “Instead, I am going back to my own land and my own people.”

²¹Next he saw the Kenites and lifted up an oracle, saying: “Your dwelling place is secure, and your nest is set in a cliff.

²²Yet Kain will be destroyed when Asshur takes you captive.”

¹¹Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent by the great tree of Zaanannim, which was near Kedesh.

¹⁹Now listen to me; I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their causes to Him.

⁹And Jethro rejoiced over all the good things the Lord had done for Israel, whom He had rescued from the hand of the Egyptians.

¹⁰Jethro declared, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who has delivered the people from the hand of the Egyptians.

¹⁸Ishmael’s descendants settled from Havilah to Shur, which is near the border of Egypt as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.

⁷Now the angel of the Lord found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.

⁴⁸He fought valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, delivering Israel from the hands of its plunderers.

⁸Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these people had inhabited the land extending to Shur and Egypt.)

¹¹The name of the first river is the Pishon; it winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.

²²Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the Desert of Shur. For three days they walked in the desert without finding water.

¹On the third day David and his men arrived in Ziklag, and the Amalekites had raided the Negev, attacked Ziklag, and burned it down.

⁷Water will flow from his buckets, and his seed will have abundant water. His king will be greater than Agag, and his kingdom will be exalted.

¹After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him to a position above all the princes who were with him.

³⁴Ben-hadad said to him, “I will restore the cities my father took from your father; you may set up your own marketplaces in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.” “By this treaty I release you,” Ahab replied. So he made a treaty with him and sent him away.

³⁵Meanwhile, by the word of the Lord, one of the sons of the prophets said to his companion, “Strike me, please!” But the man refused to strike him.

¹²Joshua captured all these kings and their cities and put them to the sword. He devoted them to destruction, as Moses the Lord’s servant had commanded.

³Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

¹⁵Saul answered, “The troops brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we devoted to destruction.”

¹⁹So why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you rush upon the plunder and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”

³Now go and attack the Amalekites and devote to destruction all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but put to death men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

²¹When I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

¹³When those carrying the ark of the Lord had advanced six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened calf.

¹³“You have acted foolishly,” Samuel declared. “You have not kept the command that the Lord your God gave you; if you had, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.

⁶And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

¹³⁶My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.

¹⁶But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

¹⁸Let them come quickly and take up a lament over us, that our eyes may overflow with tears, and our eyelids may gush with water.

⁹Saul and his troops spared Agag, along with the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs, and the best of everything else. They were unwilling to devote them to destruction, but they devoted to destruction all that was despised and worthless.

⁵⁵Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah,

²Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. He was a very wealthy man with a thousand goats and three thousand sheep, which he was shearing in Carmel.

¹⁸During his lifetime, Absalom had set up for himself a pillar in the King’s Valley, for he had said, “I have no son to preserve the memory of my name.” So he gave the pillar his name, and to this day it is called Absalom’s Monument.

⁴²So Ahab went up to eat and drink. But Elijah climbed to the summit of Carmel, bent down on the ground, and put his face between his knees.

⁸Thus the Israelites did as Joshua had commanded them. They took up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, one for each tribe of Israel, just as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them to the camp, where they set them down.

⁹Joshua also set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant stood. And the stones are there to this day.

¹²Afterward, Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

²said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you and about which I heard you utter a curse—I have the silver here with me; I took it.” Then his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord!”

¹⁰Then Boaz said, “May the Lord bless you, my daughter. You have shown more kindness now than before, because you have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

¹³There is a generation—how haughty are their eyes and pretentious are their glances—

¹¹The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

¹²And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

²For his eyes are too full of conceit to detect or hate his own sin.

²²Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord God.

²³“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

¹³“Your words against Me have been harsh,” says the Lord. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we spoken against You?’

¹⁴You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What have we gained by keeping His requirements and walking mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?

¹⁸Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

¹⁹Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord God of Hosts.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

⁹Saul and his troops spared Agag, along with the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs, and the best of everything else. They were unwilling to devote them to destruction, but they devoted to destruction all that was despised and worthless.

²¹The troops took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of the things devoted to destruction, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

²²“Do not be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil.

²³They told me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!’

¹²And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

²⁷As they were going down to the edge of the city, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to go on ahead of us, but you stay for a while, and I will reveal to you the word of God.” So the servant went on.

¹⁶But the king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear not to tell me anything but the truth in the name of the Lord?”

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.

¹Then Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people Israel. Now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord.

²This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘I witnessed what the Amalekites did to the Israelites when they opposed them on their way up from Egypt.

²¹Saul replied, “Am I not a Benjamite from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of Benjamin? So why would you say such a thing to me?”

²²So again they inquired of the Lord, “Has the man come here yet?” And the Lord replied, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

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?

⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

¹⁵“Please, my Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.”

¹⁶In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

³Does not disaster come to the unjust and calamity to the workers of iniquity?

¹³But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the Lord.

³⁸As for the censers of those who sinned at the cost of their own lives, hammer them into sheets to overlay the altar, for these were presented before the Lord, and so have become holy. They will serve as a sign to the Israelites.”

²⁹The way of the Lord is a refuge to the upright, but destruction awaits those who do evil.

²¹Disaster pursues sinners, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.

³²So they rushed greedily to the plunder, taking sheep, cattle, and calves. They slaughtered them on the ground and ate meat with the blood still in it.

⁶He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben-hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

¹²And he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke for the Lord.

¹¹Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the Lord.

⁹Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!

¹⁰You have plotted shame for your house by cutting off many peoples and forfeiting your life.

²⁷He who is greedy for unjust gain brings trouble on his household, but he who hates bribes will live.

¹³When Samuel reached him, Saul said to him, “May the Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

²⁰“All these I have kept,” said the young man. “What do I still lack?”

³Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

⁵For Job has declared, ‘I am righteous, yet God has deprived me of justice.

²“Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’

¹¹The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.

¹⁵Saul answered, “The troops brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we devoted to destruction.”

²²“Do not be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil.

²³They told me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!’

¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied, “and I ate.”

⁶For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

¹⁶For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.

¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

³To do righteousness and justice is more desirable to the Lord than sacrifice.

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.

³³and to love Him with all your heart and with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

¹³But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

¹⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. You will die this year because you have preached rebellion against the Lord.’”

¹⁴But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought a man after His own heart and appointed him ruler over His people, because you have not kept the command of the Lord.”

⁶Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists to prostitute himself with them, I will also set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.

²⁰idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions,

¹⁶What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”

³²this is what the Lord says: ‘I will surely punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his descendants. He will have no one left among this people, nor will he see the good that I will bring to My people, declares the Lord, for he has preached rebellion against the Lord.’”

¹³Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” “The Lord has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.

¹²“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Why should you be afraid of mortal man, of a son of man who withers like grass?

¹³But you have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. You live in terror all day long because of the fury of the oppressor who is bent on destruction. But where is the fury of the oppressor?

²⁵The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is set securely on high.

¹⁰Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

³⁴“I have sinned,” Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “for I did not realize that you were standing in the road to confront me. And now, if this is displeasing in your sight, I will go back home.”

²You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.

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

⁶My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

¹⁴But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought a man after His own heart and appointed him ruler over His people, because you have not kept the command of the Lord.”

¹Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”

¹⁹Hear, O earth! I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their own schemes, because they have paid no attention to My word and have rejected My instruction.

²³For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”

¹¹Whoever greets such a person shares in his evil deeds.

³⁰And Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces,

³¹and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes.

¹⁷He has done exactly what He spoke through me: The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David.

¹⁸Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out His burning anger against Amalek, the Lord has done this to you today.

²²After removing Saul, He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after My own heart; he will carry out My will in its entirety.’

¹Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God.

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.

⁸He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s, and upon them He has set the world.

¹⁷This decision is the decree of the watchers, the verdict declared by the holy ones, so that the living will know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes, setting over it the lowliest of men.’

³²You will be driven away from mankind to live with the beasts of the field, and you will feed on grass like an ox. And seven times will pass you by, until you acknowledge that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes.”

¹⁹God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?

¹⁴I, the Lord, have spoken; the time is coming, and I will act. I will not refrain or show pity, nor will I relent. I will judge you according to your ways and deeds,’ declares the Lord God.”

²in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.

¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

¹³if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.”

⁴³For they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

⁴⁴How can you believe if you accept glory from one another, yet do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

¹³Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.

⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

⁹To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable:

¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

⁴Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright—but the righteous will live by faith—

⁴⁴“Whoever flees the panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For I will bring upon Moab the year of their punishment,” declares the Lord.

⁷As much as she has glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her the same measure of torment and grief. In her heart she says, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow and will never see grief.’

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

⁷Then Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have gathered the scraps under my table. As I have done to them, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, where he died.

⁶Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.

²For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

⁶Give back to her as she has done to others; pay her back double for what she has done; mix her a double portion in her own cup.

¹³For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

⁶For they have spilled the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink, as they deserve.”

⁴When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and relayed these words in the hearing of the people, they all wept aloud.

¹⁷Then he would return to Ramah because his home was there, and there he judged Israel and built an altar to the Lord.

²⁴Then Saul stripped off his robes and also prophesied before Samuel. And he collapsed and lay naked all that day and night. That is why it is said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹¹“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from following Me and has not carried out My instructions.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all that night.

¹Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”

¹Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.

²If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.

⁶And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

¹³⁶My eyes shed streams of tears because Your law is not obeyed.