Chapter 15

Chapter 15
1 And Samuel said to Saul: The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his People Israel: now therefore hearken you unto the voice of the Lord:
2 Thus said the Lord of hosts: I have reckoned up all that Amalec has done to Israel: I how he opposed them in the way when they came up out of Egypt.
3 Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he has: spare him not, nor covet any thing that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
4 So Saul commanded the people, and numbered them as lambs: two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand of the men of Juda.
5 And when Saul was come to the city of Amalec, he laid ambushes in the torrent.
6 And Saul said to the Cinite: Go, depart and get ye down from Amalec: lest I destroy you with him. For you have shewn kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. And the Cinite departed from the midst of Amalec.
7 And Saul smote Amalec from Hevila, until you come to Sur, which is over against Egypt.
8 And he took Agag the king of Amalec alive: but all the common people he slew with the edge of the sword.
9 And Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the flocks of sheep and of the herds, and the garments and the rams, and all that was beautiful, and would not destroy them: but every thing that was vile and good for nothing, that they destroyed.
10 And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying:
11 It repents me that I have made Saul king: for he has forsaken me, and has not executed my commandments. And Samuel was grieved, and he cried unto the Lord all night.
12 And when Samuel rose early, to go to Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, that Saul was come to Carmel, and had erected for himself a triumphant arch, and returning had passed on, and gone down to Galgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul was offering a holocaust to the Lord out of the choicest of the spoils which he had brought from Amalec.
13 And when Samuel was come to Saul, Saul said to him: Blessed be of the Lord, I have fulfilled the word of the Lord.
14 And Samuel said: What means then this bleating of the flocks, which sounds in my ears, and the lowing of the herds, which I hear?
15 And Saul said: They have brought them from Amalec: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the herds that they might be sacrificed to the Lord your God, but the rest we have slain.
16 And Samuel said to Saul: Suffer me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said to him: Speak.
17 And Samuel said: When you were a little one in your own eyes, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you to be king over Israel.
18 And the Lord sent you on the way, and said: Go, and kill the sinners of Amalec, and you shall fight against them until you have utterly destroyed them.
19 Why then did you not hearken to the voice of the Lord: but have turned to the prey, and have done evil in the eyes of the Lord.
20 And Saul said to Samuel: Yea I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord, and have walked in the way by which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalec, and Amalec I have slain.
21 But the people took of the spoils sheep and oxen, as the firstfruits of those things that were slain, to offer sacrifice to the Lord their God in Galgal.
22 And Samuel said: does the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifices: and to hearken rather than to offer the fat of rams.
23 Because it is like the sin of witchcraft, to rebel: and like the crime of idolatry, to refuse to obey. Forasmuch therefore as you have rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has also rejected you from being king.
24 And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned because I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and your words, fearing the people, and obeying their voice.
25 But now bear, I beseech you, my sin, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord.
26 And Samuel said to Saul: I will not return with you, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.
27 And Samuel turned about to go away: but he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.
28 And Samuel said to him: The Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to your neighbour who is better than you.
29 But the triumpher in Israel will riot spare, and will not be moved to repentance: for he is not a mail that he should repent.
30 Then he said: I have sinned: yet honour me now before the ancients of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord your God.
31 So Samuel turned again after Saul: and Saul adored the Lord.
32 And Samuel said: Bring hitherto me Agag the king of Amalec. And Agag was presented to him very fat, and trembling. And Agag said: does bitter death separate in this manner?
33 And Samuel said: As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed him in pieces before the Lord in Galgal.
34 And Samuel departed to Ramatha: but Saul went up to his house in Gabaa.
35 And Samuel saw Saul no more till the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, because the Lord repented that he had made him king over Israel.