1 Samuel 9

⁵¹Saul’s father Kish and Abner’s father Ner were sons of Abiel.

²¹Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.

³⁶Abdon was his firstborn son, then Zur, Kish, Baal, Ner, Nadab,

³⁷Gedor, Ahio, Zechariah, and Mikloth.

³⁰and Abdon was his firstborn son, then Zur, Kish, Baal, Nadab,

³¹Gedor, Ahio, Zecher,

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.

³and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the Lord does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.”

²⁵Now there was not a man in all Israel as handsome and highly praised as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the top of his head, he did not have a single flaw.

²⁶And when he cut the hair of his head—he shaved it every year because his hair got so heavy—he would weigh it out to be two hundred shekels, according to the royal standard.

²the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose.

³³We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”

⁴Then a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out from the Philistine camp. He was six cubits and a span in height,

²³This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the wealthy man in his riches.

¹⁰You who ride white donkeys, who sit on saddle blankets, and you who travel the road, ponder

⁴He had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys. And they had thirty towns in the land of Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth-jair.

²When you leave me today, you will find two men at Rachel’s tomb in Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you seek have been found, and now your father has stopped worrying about the donkeys and started worrying about you, asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

⁴²Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.

³³Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him at Gibeah, which had been given to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

¹⁸After Jacob had come from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in the land of Canaan, and he camped just outside the city.

¹Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim

¹Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

²³Now John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because the water was plentiful there, and people kept coming to be baptized.

²When you leave me today, you will find two men at Rachel’s tomb in Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you seek have been found, and now your father has stopped worrying about the donkeys and started worrying about you, asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

¹Now there was a man named Elkanah who was from Ramathaim-zophim in the hill country of Ephraim. He was the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.

¹¹When you are brought before synagogues, rulers, and authorities, do not worry about how to defend yourselves or what to say.

²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin.

²⁵Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

²²Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.

¹Suddenly, as Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord.

¹¹But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

¹This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced upon the Israelites before his death.

¹³In love, hold them in highest regard because of their work. Live in peace with one another.

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.

¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless our conduct was among you who believed.

⁸So the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift in your hand, go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord through him, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”

³Take with you ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will become of the boy.”

⁴²Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.

¹⁵Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”

¹⁸Please do not depart from this place until I return to You. Let me bring my offering and set it before You.” And the Lord said, “I will stay until you return.”

¹⁵“Please stay here,” Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “and we will prepare a young goat for you.”

¹⁶And the angel of the Lord replied, “Even if I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know that it was the angel of the Lord.

¹⁰They say to the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions.

²⁸Everything that had been dedicated by Samuel the seer, Saul son of Kish, Abner son of Ner, and Joab son of Zeruiah, along with everything else that was dedicated, was under the care of Shelomith and his brothers.

¹³Yet through all His prophets and seers, the Lord warned Israel and Judah, saying, “Turn from your wicked ways and keep My commandments and statutes, according to the entire Law that I commanded your fathers and delivered to you through My servants the prophets.”

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.

²⁹Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are indeed written in the Chronicles of Samuel the Seer, the Chronicles of Nathan the Prophet, and the Chronicles of Gad the Seer,

¹¹When David got up in the morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David’s seer:

¹³Naaman’s servants, however, approached him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’?”

¹⁴So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean.

¹¹As evening approached, he made the camels kneel down near the well outside the town at the time when the women went out to draw water.

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock.

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:

¹⁸“Drink, my lord,” she replied, and she quickly lowered her jar to her hands and gave him a drink.

¹⁹After she had given him a drink, she said, “I will also draw water for your camels, until they have had enough to drink.”

⁵⁴Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. And after they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain.

²“How can I go?” Samuel asked. “Saul will hear of it and kill me!” The Lord answered, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

⁵After that you will come to Gibeah of God, where the Philistines have an outpost. As you approach the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, preceded by harps, tambourines, flutes, and lyres, and they will be prophesying.

²The people, however, were still sacrificing on the high places because a house for the Name of the Lord had not yet been built.

³And Solomon loved the Lord and walked in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

⁷Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

⁸Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.

⁶To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

⁷There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves and the fish, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.

⁴¹Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, Jesus spoke a blessing and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to His disciples to set before the people. And He divided the two fish among them all.

²⁶While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”

³⁰If I partake in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?

³⁰While He was reclining at the table with them, He took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to them.

⁴For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,

²¹Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.

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.

⁷Surely the Lord God does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.

²⁷For You, O Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, have revealed this to Your servant when You said, ‘I will build a house for you.’ Therefore Your servant has found the courage to offer this prayer to You.

¹⁶He opens their ears and terrifies them with warnings

¹⁴The Lord confides in those who fear Him, and reveals His covenant to them.

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?

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

⁴⁴Nevertheless He heard their cry; He took note of their distress.

¹⁸Consider my affliction and trouble, and take away all my sins.

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.

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.

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

²¹Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.

⁶When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and said, “Surely here before the Lord is His anointed.”

⁷But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the Lord does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart.”

¹³I told him that I would judge his house forever for the iniquity of which he knows, because his sons blasphemed God and he did not restrain them.

¹⁹When the evening shadows began to fall on the gates of Jerusalem, just before the Sabbath, I ordered that the gates be shut and not opened until after the Sabbath. I posted some of my servants at the gates so that no load could enter on the Sabbath day.

²⁵I rebuked them and called down curses on them. I beat some of these men and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath before God and said, “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or for yourselves!

²⁵and the secrets of his heart will be made known. So he will fall facedown and worship God, proclaiming, “God is truly among you!”

²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

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.”

¹³Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you requested. Behold, the Lord has placed a king over you.

³One day the donkeys of Saul’s father Kish wandered off, and Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants and go look for the donkeys.”

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

¹⁰Place no trust in extortion or false hope in stolen goods. If your riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.

¹⁵But if you disobey the Lord and rebel against His command, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was against your fathers.

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

⁸Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

²⁷There is Benjamin, the youngest, ruling them, the princes of Judah in their company, the princes of Zebulun and of Naphtali.

⁴⁶That day 25,000 Benjamite swordsmen fell, all men of valor.

⁴⁷But 600 men turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, where they stayed four months.

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?”

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.”

³²They separately served Joseph, his brothers, and the Egyptians. They ate separately because the Egyptians would not eat with the Hebrews, since that was detestable to them.

¹⁰But when you are invited, go and sit in the last place, so that your host will come and tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in front of everyone at the table with you.

⁵But to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved her even though the Lord had closed her womb.

³⁴When the portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times larger than any of the others. So they feasted and drank freely with Joseph.

⁴Put in the pieces of meat, every good piece—thigh and shoulder—fill it with choice bones.

³²And you are to give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from your peace offering.

³³The son of Aaron who presents the blood and fat of the peace offering shall have the right thigh as a portion.

²²Take the fat from the ram, the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails, the lobe of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh (since this is a ram for ordination),

²⁷Consecrate for Aaron and his sons the breast of the wave offering that is waved and the thigh of the heave offering that is lifted up from the ram of ordination.

¹⁸And their meat belongs to you, just as the breast and right thigh of the wave offering belong to you.

⁸If you build a new house, you are to construct a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it.

⁹The next day at about the sixth hour, as the men were approaching the city on their journey, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

²One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.

¹⁶And the people went out, brought back branches, and made booths on their own rooftops, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God, and in the squares by the Water Gate and by the Gate of Ephraim.

¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.”

²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.

¹⁴So Lot went out and spoke to the sons-in-law who were pledged in marriage to his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

¹³Get up and consecrate the people, saying, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Among you, O Israel, there are things devoted to destruction. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them.

⁴They had not gone far from the city when Joseph told his steward, “Pursue the men at once, and when you overtake them, ask, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil?

²⁸“Get up,” he told her. “Let us go.” But there was no response. So the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you.

¹⁵No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.

⁵and when he arrived, the army commanders were sitting there. “I have a message for you, commander,” he said. “For which of us?” asked Jehu. “For you, commander,” he replied.

⁶So Jehu got up and went into the house, where the young prophet poured the oil on his head and declared, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anoint you king over the Lord’s people Israel.

³⁸Then Jonathan cried out, “Hurry! Make haste! Do not delay!” So the boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master.

³⁹But the boy did not know anything; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement.

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