[2:1] Hannah prayed: “The Lord has filled my heart with joy; how happy I am because of what he has done! I laugh at my enemies; how joyful I am because God has helped me!
[2:2] “No one is holy like the Lord; there is none like him, no protector like our God.
[2:3] Stop your loud boasting; silence your proud words. For the Lord is a God who knows, and he judges all that people do.
[2:4] The bows of strong soldiers are broken, but the weak grow strong.
[2:5] The people who once were well fed now hire themselves out to get food, but the hungry are hungry no more. The childless wife has borne seven children, but the mother of many is left with none.
[2:6] The Lord kills and restores to life; he sends people to the world of the dead and brings them back again.
[2:7] He makes some people poor and others rich; he humbles some and makes others great.
[2:8] He lifts the poor from the dust and raises the needy from their misery. He makes them companions of princes and puts them in places of honor. The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord; on them he has built the world.
[2:9] “He protects the lives of his faithful people, but the wicked disappear in darkness; a man does not triumph by his own strength.
[2:10] The Lord's enemies will be destroyed; he will thunder against them from heaven. The Lord will judge the whole world; he will give power to his king, he will make his chosen king victorious.”
[2:11] Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah, but the boy Samuel stayed in Shiloh and served the Lord under the priest Eli.