The Lord will hand you and Israel over to the Philistines! Tomorrow both you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also hand the army of Israel over to the Philistines!”

When the men of Israel who were in the valley and across the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled. The Philistines came and occupied them.

Eli replied, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the request that you have asked of him.”

Why are you scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

You will see trouble in my dwelling place! Israel will experience blessings, but there will not be an old man in your house for all time.

The Lord said to Samuel, “Look! I am about to do something in Israel; when anyone hears about it, both of his ears will tingle.

When the ark of the covenant of the Lord arrived at the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the ground shook.

She named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” referring to the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

It was quite a long time – some twenty years in all – that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people of Israel longed for the Lord.

The Israelites said to Samuel, “Keep crying out to the Lord our God so that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines!”

So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him.

Then the men of Israel left Mizpah and chased the Philistines, striking them down all the way to an area below Beth Car.

So the Philistines were defeated; they did not invade Israel again. The hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

Year after year he used to travel the circuit of Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; he used to judge Israel in all of these places.

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

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do as they say and install a king over them.” Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go back to his own city.”

He had a son named Saul, a handsome young man. There was no one among the Israelites more handsome than he was; he stood head and shoulders above all the people.

(Now it used to be in Israel that whenever someone went to inquire of God he would say, “Come on, let’s go to the seer.” For today’s prophet used to be called a seer.)

But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “The only way I will make a treaty with you is if you let me gouge out the right eye of every one of you and in so doing humiliate all Israel!”

But Saul said, “No one will be killed on this day. For today the Lord has given Israel a victory!”