The Holy Bible

[2:18] In the meantime the boy Samuel continued to serve the Lord, wearing a sacred linen apron.

[2:19] Each year his mother would make a little robe and take it to him when she accompanied her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

[2:20] Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say to Elkanah, “May the Lord give you other children by this woman to take the place of the one you dedicated to him.” After that they would go back home.

[2:21] The Lord did bless Hannah, and she had three more sons and two daughters. The boy Samuel grew up in the service of the Lord.

[2:22] Eli was now very old. He kept hearing about everything his sons were doing to the Israelites and that they were even sleeping with the women who worked at the entrance to the Tent of the Lord's presence.

[2:23] So he said to them, “Why are you doing these things? Everybody tells me about the evil you are doing.

[2:24] Stop it, my sons! This is an awful thing the people of the Lord are talking about!

[2:25] If anyone sins against someone else, God can defend the one who is wrong; but who can defend someone who sins against the Lord?” But they would not listen to their father, for the Lord had decided to kill them.

[2:26] The boy Samuel continued to grow and to gain favor both with the Lord and with people.

[2:27] A prophet came to Eli with this message from the Lord: “When your ancestor Aaron and his family were slaves of the king of Egypt, I revealed myself to Aaron.

[2:28] From all the tribes of Israel I chose his family to be my priests, to serve at the altar, to burn the incense, and to wear the ephod to consult me. And I gave them the right to keep a share of the sacrifices burned on the altar.

[2:29] Why, then, do you look with greed at the sacrifices and offerings which I require from my people? Why, Eli, do you honor your sons more than me by letting them fatten themselves on the best parts of all the sacrifices my people offer to me?

[2:30] I, the Lord God of Israel, promised in the past that your family and your clan would serve me as priests for all time. But now I say that I won't have it any longer! Instead, I will honor those who honor me, and I will treat with contempt those who despise me.

[2:31] Listen, the time is coming when I will kill all the young men in your family and your clan, so that no man in your family will live to be old.

[2:32] You will be troubled and look with envy on all the blessings I will give to the other people of Israel, but no one in your family will ever again live to old age.

[2:33] Yet I will keep one of your descendants alive, and he will serve me as priest. But he will become blind and lose all hope, and all your other descendants will die a violent death.

[2:34] When your two sons Hophni and Phinehas both die on the same day, this will show you that everything I have said will come true.

[2:35] I will choose a priest who will be faithful to me and do everything I want him to. I will give him descendants, who will always serve in the presence of my chosen king.

[2:36] Any of your descendants who survive will have to go to that priest and ask him for money and food, and beg to be allowed to help the priests, in order to have something to eat.”

[3:1] In those days, when the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under the direction of Eli, there were very few messages from the Lord, and visions from him were quite rare.

[3:2] One night Eli, who was now almost blind, was sleeping in his own room;

[3:3] Samuel was sleeping in the sanctuary, where the sacred Covenant Box was. Before dawn, while the lamp was still burning,

[3:4] the Lord called Samuel. He answered, “Yes, sir!”

[3:5] and ran to Eli and said, “You called me, and here I am.” But Eli answered, “I didn't call you; go back to bed.” So Samuel went back to bed. But Eli answered, “My son, I didn't call you; go back to bed.”

[3:8] The Lord called Samuel a third time; he got up, went to Eli, and said, “You called me, and here I am.” Then Eli realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy,

[3:9] so he said to him, “Go back to bed; and if he calls you again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed.

[3:10] The Lord came and stood there, and called as he had before, “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel answered, “Speak; your servant is listening.”

[3:11] The Lord said to him, “Some day I am going to do something to the people of Israel that is so terrible that everyone who hears about it will be stunned.

[3:12] On that day I will carry out all my threats against Eli's family, from beginning to end.

[3:13] I have already told him that I am going to punish his family forever because his sons have spoken evil things against me. Eli knew they were doing this, but he did not stop them.

[3:14] So I solemnly declare to the family of Eli that no sacrifice or offering will ever be able to remove the consequences of this terrible sin.”

[3:15] Samuel stayed in bed until morning; then he got up and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli about the vision.

[3:16] Eli called him, “Samuel, my boy!” “Yes, sir,” answered Samuel.

[3:17] “What did the Lord tell you?” Eli asked. “Don't keep anything from me. God will punish you severely if you don't tell me everything he said.”

[3:18] So Samuel told him everything; he did not keep anything back. Eli said, “He is the Lord; he will do whatever seems best to him.”

[3:19] As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and made come true everything that Samuel said.

[3:20] So all the people of Israel, from one end of the country to the other, knew that Samuel was indeed a prophet of the Lord.

[3:21] The Lord continued to reveal himself at Shiloh, where he had appeared to Samuel and had spoken to him. And when Samuel spoke, all Israel listened.

[4:1] At that time the Philistines gathered to go to war against Israel, so the Israelites set out to fight them. The Israelites set up their camp at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek.

[4:2] The Philistines attacked, and after fierce fighting they defeated the Israelites and killed about four thousand men on the battlefield.

[4:3] When the survivors came back to camp, the leaders of Israel said, “Why did the Lord let the Philistines defeat us today? Let's go and bring the Lord's Covenant Box from Shiloh, so that he will go with us and save us from our enemies.”

[4:4] So they sent messengers to Shiloh and got the Covenant Box of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned above the winged creatures. And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, came along with the Covenant Box.

[4:5] When the Covenant Box arrived, the Israelites gave such a loud shout of joy that the earth shook.

[4:6] The Philistines heard the shouting and said, “Listen to all that shouting in the Hebrew camp! What does it mean?” When they found out that the Lord's Covenant Box had arrived in the Hebrew camp,

[4:7] they were afraid, and said, “A god has come into their camp! We're lost! Nothing like this has ever happened to us before!

[4:8] Who can save us from those powerful gods? They are the gods who slaughtered the Egyptians in the desert!

[4:9] Be brave, Philistines! Fight like men, or we will become slaves to the Hebrews, just as they were our slaves. So fight like men!”

[4:10] The Philistines fought hard and defeated the Israelites, who went running to their homes. There was a great slaughter: thirty thousand Israelite soldiers were killed.

[4:11] God's Covenant Box was captured, and Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were both killed.

[4:12] A man from the tribe of Benjamin ran all the way from the battlefield to Shiloh and arrived there the same day. To show his grief, he had torn his clothes and put dirt on his head.

[4:13] Eli, who was very worried about the Covenant Box, was sitting in his seat beside the road, staring. The man spread the news throughout the town, and everyone cried out in fear.

[4:14] Eli heard the noise and asked, “What is all this noise about?” The man hurried to Eli to tell him the news. (

[4:15] Eli was now ninety-eight years old and almost completely blind.)

[4:16] The man said, “I have escaped from the battle and have run all the way here today.” Eli asked him, “What happened, my son?”

[4:17] The messenger answered, “Israel ran away from the Philistines; it was a terrible defeat for us! Besides that, your sons Hophni and Phinehas were killed, and God's Covenant Box was captured!”

[4:18] When the man mentioned the Covenant Box, Eli fell backward from his seat beside the gate. He was so old and fat that the fall broke his neck, and he died. He had been a leader in Israel for forty years.

[4:19] Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, and it was almost time for her baby to be born. When she heard that God's Covenant Box had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she suddenly went into labor and gave birth.

[4:20] As she was dying, the women helping her said to her, “Be brave! You have a son!” But she paid no attention and did not answer.

[4:21] She named the boy Ichabod, explaining, “God's glory has left Israel”—referring to the capture of the Covenant Box and the death of her father-in-law and her husband.

[4:22] “God's glory has left Israel,” she said, “because God's Covenant Box has been captured.”

[5:1] After the Philistines captured the Covenant Box, they carried it from Ebenezer to their city of Ashdod,

[5:2] took it into the temple of their god Dagon, and set it up beside his statue.

[5:3] Early the next morning the people of Ashdod saw that the statue of Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground in front of the Lord's Covenant Box. So they lifted it up and put it back in its place.

[5:4] Early the following morning they saw that the statue had again fallen down in front of the Covenant Box. This time its head and both its arms were broken off and were lying in the doorway; only the body was left. (

[5:5] That is why even today the priests of Dagon and all his worshipers in Ashdod step over that place and do not walk on it.)

[5:6] The Lord punished the people of Ashdod severely and terrified them. He punished them and the people in the surrounding territory by causing them to have tumors.

[5:7] When they saw what was happening, they said, “The God of Israel is punishing us and our god Dagon. We can't let the Covenant Box stay here any longer.”

[5:8] So they sent messengers and called together all five of the Philistine kings and asked them, “What shall we do with the Covenant Box of the God of Israel?” “Take it over to Gath,” they answered; so they took it to Gath, another Philistine city.

[5:9] But after it arrived there, the Lord punished that city too and caused a great panic. He punished them with tumors which developed in all the people of the city, young and old alike.

[5:10] So they sent the Covenant Box to Ekron, another Philistine city; but when it arrived there, the people cried out, “They have brought the Covenant Box of the God of Israel here, in order to kill us all!”

[5:11] So again they sent for all the Philistine kings and said, “Send the Covenant Box of Israel back to its own place, so that it won't kill us and our families.” There was panic throughout the city because God was punishing them so severely.

[5:12] Even those who did not die developed tumors and the people cried out to their gods for help.

[6:1] After the Lord's Covenant Box had been in Philistia for seven months,

[6:2] the people called the priests and the magicians and asked, “What shall we do with the Covenant Box of the Lord? If we send it back where it belongs, what shall we send with it?”

[6:3] They answered, “If you return the Covenant Box of the God of Israel, you must, of course, send with it a gift to him to pay for your sin. The Covenant Box must not go back without a gift. In this way you will be healed, and you will find out why he has kept on punishing you.”

[6:4] “What gift shall we send him?” the people asked. They answered, “Five gold models of tumors and five gold mice, one of each for each Philistine king. The same plague was sent on all of you and on the five kings.

[6:5] You must make these models of the tumors and of the mice that are ravaging your country, and you must give honor to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will stop punishing you, your gods, and your land.

[6:6] Why should you be stubborn, as the king of Egypt and the Egyptians were? Don't forget how God made fools of them until they let the Israelites leave Egypt.

[6:7] So prepare a new wagon and two cows that have never been yoked; hitch them to the wagon and drive their calves back to the barn.

[6:8] Take the Lord's Covenant Box, put it on the wagon, and place in a box beside it the gold models that you are sending to him as a gift to pay for your sins. Start the wagon on its way and let it go by itself.

[6:9] Then watch it go; if it goes toward the town of Beth Shemesh, this means that it is the God of the Israelites who has sent this terrible disaster on us. But if it doesn't, then we will know that he did not send the plague; it was only a matter of chance.”

[6:10] They did what they were told: they took two cows and hitched them to the wagon, and shut the calves in the barn.

[6:11] They put the Covenant Box in the wagon, together with the box containing the gold models of the mice and of the tumors.

[6:12] The cows started off on the road to Beth Shemesh and headed straight toward it, without turning off the road. They were mooing as they went. The five Philistine kings followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.

[6:13] The people of Beth Shemesh were reaping wheat in the valley, when suddenly they looked up and saw the Covenant Box. They were overjoyed at the sight.

[6:14] The wagon came to a field belonging to a man named Joshua, who lived in Beth Shemesh, and it stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the wooden wagon and killed the cows and burned them as a burnt sacrifice to the Lord.

[6:15] The Levites lifted off the Covenant Box of the Lord and the box with the gold models in it, and placed them on the large rock. Then the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt sacrifices and other sacrifices to the Lord.

[6:16] The five Philistine kings watched them do this and then went back to Ekron that same day.

[6:17] The Philistines sent the five gold tumors to the Lord as a gift to pay for their sins, one each for the cities of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

[6:18] They also sent gold mice, one for each of the cities ruled by the five Philistine kings, both the fortified towns and the villages without walls. The large rock in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, on which they placed the Lord's Covenant Box, is still there as a witness to what happened.

[6:19] The Lord killed seventy of the men of Beth Shemesh because they looked inside the Covenant Box. And the people mourned because the Lord had caused such a great slaughter among them.