Study Desk

And everyone left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a morsel of bread, pleading, "Please appoint me to some priestly office, so that I may eat a piece of bread."'"

And at that time Eli, whose eyesight had grown so dim that he could not see, was lying in his room.

He ran to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you have called me." "I did not call," Eli replied. "Go back and lie down." So he went and lay down.

Once again the LORD called, "Samuel!" So Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you have called me." "My son, I did not call," Eli replied. "Go back and lie down."

"Go and lie down," he said to Samuel, "and if He calls you, say, 'Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

"What was the message He gave you?" Eli asked. "Do not hide it from me. May God punish you, and ever so severely, if you hide from me anything He said to you."

So Samuel told him everything and did not hide a thing from him. "He is the LORD," replied Eli. "Let Him do what is good in His eyes."

So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the LORD.

When the troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, "Why has the LORD brought defeat on us before the Philistines today? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh, so that it may go with us to deliver us from the hand of our enemies."

So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the LORD of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great-thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.

Eli heard the outcry and asked, "Why this commotion?" So the man hurried over and reported to Eli.

When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on his face before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and returned him to his place.

So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked, "What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?" "It must be moved to Gath," they replied. So they carried away the ark of the God of Israel.

So they sent the ark of God to Ekron, but as it arrived, the Ekronites cried out, "They have brought us the ark of the God of Israel in order to kill us and our people!"

Then the Ekronites assembled all the rulers of the Philistines and said, "Send away the ark of the God of Israel. It must return to its place, so that it will not kill us and our people!" For a deadly confusion had pervaded the city; the hand of God was heavy upon it.

So the men did as instructed. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves.

So they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-jearim, saying, "The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up with you."

So the Israelites put away the Baals and Ashtoreths and served only the LORD.

and said to Samuel, "Do not stop crying out to the LORD our God for us, so that He will deliver us from the hand of the Philistines."