Ask your own servants; they can tell you! May my servants find favor in your sight, for we have come ¹  at the time of a holiday. Please provide us – your servants ²  and your son David – with whatever you can spare.” ³ 

My lord should not pay attention to this wicked man Nabal. He simply lives up to his name! His name means ‘fool,’ and he is indeed foolish! ¹  But I, your servant, did not see the servants my lord sent. ² 

When someone sets out to chase you and to take your life, the life of my lord will be wrapped securely in the bag ¹  of the living by the Lord your God. But he will sling away the lives of your enemies from the sling’s pocket!

But the woman said to him, “Look, you are aware of what Saul has done; he has removed ¹  the mediums and magicians ²  from the land! Why are you trapping me ³  so you can put me to death?”

The Lord will hand you and Israel over to the Philistines! ¹  Tomorrow both you and your sons will be with me. ²  The Lord will also hand the army ³  of Israel over to the Philistines!”

But David said, “No! You shouldn’t do this, my brothers. Look at what the Lord has given us! ¹  He has protected us and has delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us.

But Hannah replied, “That’s not the way it is, ¹  my lord! I am under a great deal of stress. ²  I have drunk neither wine nor beer. Rather, I have poured out my soul to ³  the Lord.

Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman, ¹  for until now I have spoken from my deep pain and anguish.”

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

They got up early the next morning and after worshiping the Lord, they returned to their home at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with ¹  his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered ²  her.

After some time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, thinking, “I asked the Lord for him. ¹ 

but Hannah did not go up with them. ¹  Instead she told her husband, “Once the boy is weaned, I will bring him and appear before the Lord, and he will remain there from then on.”

Now the priests would always treat the people in the following way: ¹  Whenever anyone was making a sacrifice, while the meat was boiling, the priest’s attendant would come with a three-pronged fork ²  in his hand.

So the Lord graciously attended to Hannah, and she was able to conceive and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. The boy Samuel grew up at the Lord’s sanctuary. ¹ 

He said to them, “Why do you behave in this way? For I hear about these evil things from all these ¹  people.

Why are you ¹  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? ²  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.’

In fact, days are coming when I will remove your strength ¹  and the strength ²  of your father’s house. There will not be an old man in your house!

You will see trouble in my dwelling place! ¹  Israel will experience blessings, ²  but there will not be an old man in your ³  house for all time. ⁴ 

Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. ¹  Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent.

On that day I will carry out ¹  against Eli everything that I spoke about his house – from start to finish!