Year after year this man would go up from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh. It was there that the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, served as the Lord's priests.

And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:

Being grieved, her distress grieved her so that she was moved because Jehovah shut up about her womb

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.

Then Hannah rose up after that they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh. And Eli the priest sat upon a stool by one of the side posts of the temple of the LORD.

And it came to pass, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli marked her mouth.

For Hannah's prayer came from her heart, and though her lips were moving she made no sound: so it seemed to Eli that she was overcome with wine.

and said unto her, "How long wilt thou be drunken? Put away from thee the wine that thou hast."

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

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

Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.

But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide for ever.

And Elkanah her husband saith to her, 'Do that which is good in thine eyes; abide till thy weaning him; only, Jehovah establish His word;' and the woman abideth and suckleth her son till she hath weaned him,

And she said, Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the LORD.

I prayed for this boy, and the Lord has given me the request that I asked of him.

And also I have lent him to Jehovah: all the days that he lives, he is lent to Jehovah. And he worshipped Jehovah there.

Hannah prayed, "My heart rejoices in the Lord; my horn is exalted high because of the Lord. I loudly denounce my enemies, for I am happy that you delivered me.

Let go your great boasting of high things, let go out of your mouth that old byword: for the LORD is a God that knoweth all things, and judgeth the thoughts.

The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.

They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.

He watches over his holy ones, but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one's own strength that one prevails.

They that strive with Jehovah shall be broken to pieces; in the heavens will he thunder upon them. Jehovah will judge the ends of the earth; and he will give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.

And the priests' custom with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook of three teeth in his hand;

He would jab it into the basin, kettle, caldron, or pot, and everything that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they used to do to all the Israelites when they came there to Shiloh.

Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw.

If that man said to him, “The fat must be burned first; then you can take whatever you want for yourself,” the servant would reply, “No, I insist that you hand it over right now. If you don’t, I’ll take it by force!”

And so it was, that, the sin of the young men, was exceeding great, before Yahweh, - for men scorned the offerings of Yahweh.

Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife saying, "May the Lord raise up for you descendants from this woman to replace the one that she dedicated to the Lord." Then they would go to their home.

And the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the LORD.

Now Eli was very old when he heard about everything that his sons used to do to all the people of Israel and how they used to have sex with the women who were stationed at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

He said to them, “Why do you do such things, the evil things that I hear from all these people?

This ought not to be, my sons! For the report that I hear circulating among the Lord's people is not good.

that I had chosen him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer up burnt offerings on my altar, burn incense, and carry the ephod in my presence? And did I not give to your ancestors' family all the Israeli fire-offerings?

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.'

Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, 'I really did say that your house and your ancestor's house would serve me forever.' But now the Lord says, 'May it never be! For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house.

You will see distress in the place of worship, in spite of all that is good in Israel, and no one in your family will ever again reach old age.

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.

This will be a confirming sign for you that will be fulfilled through your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: in a single day they both will die!

And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind: and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever.

And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in thine house shall come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a piece of bread.

Eli's eyes had begun to fail, so that he was unable to see well. At that time he was lying down in his place,

That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.

Now at that time Samuel had no knowledge of the Lord, and the revelation of the word of the Lord had not come to him.

Then the Lord called Samuel a third time. So he got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me!" Eli then realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy.

Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.

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

You should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, and he did not rebuke them.

And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.

Eli said, "What message did he speak to you? Don't conceal it from me. God will judge you severely if you conceal from me anything that he said to you!"

And Samuel declareth to him the whole of the words, and hath not hid from him; and he saith, 'It is Jehovah; that which is good in His eyes He doth.'

All Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba realized that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.

Then the Lord again appeared in Shiloh, for it was in Shiloh that the Lord had revealed himself to Samuel through the word of the Lord.

Now at that time the Philistines came together to make war against Israel, and the men of Israel went out to war against the Philistines and took up their position at the side of Eben-ezer: and the Philistines put their forces in position in Aphek.

And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.

So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

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

When the Philistines heard the sound of the shout, they said, "What is this loud shout in the camp of the Hebrews?" Then they realized that the ark of the Lord had arrived at the camp.

The Philistines were scared because they thought that gods had come to the camp. They said, "Too bad for us! We've never seen anything like this!

Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.

Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight.

And the Philistines fought, and Israel was put to the worse and fled, every man into his tent. And there was a mighty great slaughter, so that there were overthrown of Israel, thirty thousand footmen.

On that day a Benjaminite ran from the battle lines and came to Shiloh. His clothes were torn and dirt was on his head.

When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he asked what the noise of that rumour meant. And the man hasted and came in and told Eli.

Now Eli was ninety and eight years old; and his eyes were dim, that he could not see.

And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?

And he that brought the tidings answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.

And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phineas, was pregnant and close to giving birth. When she heard that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she doubled over and gave birth. But her labor pains were too much for her.

And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it.

And when the people of Ashdod got up early on the morning after, they saw that Dagon had come down to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon up and put him in his place again.

And when they were up early in the next morning behold, Dagon lay groveling upon the ground before the ark of the LORD, and his head and his two hands cut off upon the threshold, that the body only was left on him.

Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day.

And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.

But after it had been moved the Lord attacked that city as well, causing a great deal of panic. He struck all the people of that city with sores.

Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people.

So they assembled all the leaders of the Philistines and said, "Get the ark of the God of Israel out of here! Let it go back to its own place so that it won't kill us and our people!" The terror of death was throughout the entire city; God was attacking them very severely there.

And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

And it came to pass, that the ark of Yahweh was in the country of the Philistines, seven months.

They inquired, "What is the guilt offering that we should send to him?" They replied, "The Philistine leaders number five. So send five gold sores and five gold mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders.

You should make images of the sores and images of the mice that are destroying the land. You should honor the God of Israel. Perhaps he will release his grip on you, your gods, and your land.

Why should you harden your hearts like [the] Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Is it not just like when he dealt with them wantonly so that they sent them away and they left?

So now go and make a new cart. Get two cows that have calves and that have never had a yoke placed on them. Harness the cows to the cart and take their calves from them back to their stalls.

And take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.

But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has brought this great calamity on us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to us by accident."

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.

The cows went straight up the road to Beth-shemesh. They stayed on that one highway, lowing as they went; they never strayed to the right or to the left. The Philistine rulers were walking behind them to the territory of Beth-shemesh.

The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh, and stopped there. In that place there was a large stone. They broke up the wood from the cart, and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.

The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it, which contained the gold objects. They placed them near the big stone. At that time the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord.

When the five lords of the Philistines saw what happened, they returned to Ekron that day.

These are the gold sores that the Philistines brought as a guilt offering to the Lord -- one for each of the following cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fortified cities and of country villages, even to the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of the LORD. That stone remains to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.

And, when he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked into the ark of Yahweh, yea smote of the people seventy men and fifty thousand men, the people mourned, for that Yahweh had smitten the people with a great smiting.

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.

Samuel told them, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, get rid of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths that are among you, dedicate yourselves to the Lord, and worship only Him. Then He will rescue you from the hand of the Philistines.”

And Samuel said, Gather all Israel unto Mizpah, - that I may pray for you, unto Yahweh.

After they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. They fasted on that day, and they confessed there, "We have sinned against the Lord." So Samuel led the people of Israel at Mizpah.

When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, the leaders of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the Israelites heard about this, they were afraid of the Philistines.

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!"