They stopped there and decided to spend the night in Gibeah. They came into the city and sat down in the town square, but no one invited them to spend the night.

The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light.

When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.

The leaders of Gibeah attacked me and at night surrounded the house where I was staying. They wanted to kill me; instead they abused my concubine so badly that she died.

All Israel rose up in unison and said, “Not one of us will go home! Not one of us will return to his house!

Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Listen to me! Each of you should return to your mother’s home! May the Lord show you the same kind of devotion that you have shown to your deceased husbands and to me!

May the Lord enable each of you to find security in the home of a new husband!” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept loudly.

She asked, ‘May I follow the harvesters and gather grain among the bundles?’ Since she arrived she has been working hard from this morning until now – except for sitting in the resting hut a short time.”

Peninnah would behave this way year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the Lord’s house, Peninnah would upset her so that she would weep and refuse to eat.

They got up early the next morning and after worshiping the Lord, they returned to their home at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.

Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah of flour, and a container of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young.

Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah. But the boy was serving the Lord under the supervision of Eli the priest.

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.

Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your eyes to fail and will cause you grief. All of those born to your family will die in the prime of life.

Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest. He will do what is in my heart and soul. I will build for him a secure dynasty and he will serve my chosen one for all time.

On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I spoke about his house – from start to finish!

So Samuel lay down until morning. Then he opened the doors of the Lord’s house. But Samuel was afraid to tell Eli about the vision.

The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, where they positioned it beside Dagon.

(For this reason, to this very day, neither Dagon’s priests nor anyone else who enters Dagon’s temple step on Dagon’s threshold in Ashdod.)

So the men did as instructed. They took two cows that had calves and harnessed them to a cart; they also removed their calves to their stalls.