CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub]. Common English Bible

CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub]

happened to you, do whatever you would like to do, because God is with you. ⁸Then go down to Gilgal ahead of me. I'll come down to meet you to offer entirely burned offerings and to make well-being sacrifices. Wait seven days until I get to you, then I'll tell you what you should do next."

⁹And just as Saul turned to leave Samuel's side, God gave him a different heart, and all these signs happened that very same day. ¹⁰When Saul and the boy got to Gibeah, there was a group of prophets coming to meet him. God's spirit came over Saul, and he was caught up in a prophetic frenzy right along with them. ¹¹When all the people who had known Saul saw him prophesying with the prophets, they said to each other, "What's happened to Kish's son? Is Saul also one of the prophets?"¹²One of the locals then asked, "And who is their leader?"^f So it became a proverb: "Is Saul also one of the prophets?"¹³When the prophetic frenzy was over, Saul went home.^g

¹⁴Saul's uncle said to him and to his young servant, "Where did you go?"

"To look for the donkeys," Saul replied, "but when we couldn't find anything, we went to Samuel."

¹⁵"Please tell me what Samuel told you," Saul's uncle said.

¹⁶"He reassured us that the donkeys had been found," Saul answered. But Saul didn't tell his uncle what Samuel had said about the kingship.

Saul selected as king

¹⁷Samuel summoned the people to the LORD at Mizpah. ¹⁸Then he told the Israelites: "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the Egyptians' power and from the power of all the kingdoms that oppressed you. ¹⁹But today you've rejected your God who saved you from all your troubles and difficulties by saying, 'No! Appoint a king over us!' So now assemble yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and clans."

²⁰Then Samuel brought all the Israelite tribes forward, and the tribe of Benjamin was selected. ²¹Next Samuel brought the tribe of Benjamin forward by its families, and the family of Matri was selected. Samuel then brought the family of Matri forward, person by person,^h and Saul, Kish's son, was selected. But when they looked for him, he wasn't to be found. ²²So they asked another question of the LORD: "Has the man come here yet?"

The LORD said, "Yes, he's hiding among the supplies."²³They ran and retrieved Saul from there, and when he stood up in the middle of the people, he was head and shoulders taller than anyone else.

²⁴"Can you see the one the LORD has chosen?" Samuel asked all the people. "He has no equal among the people."

Then the people shouted, "Long live the king!"

²⁵Samuel then explained to the people how the monarchy should operateⁱ and wrote it in a scroll and placed it in the LORD's presence. Then Samuel sent every person back to their homes. ²⁶Saul also went back to his home in Gibeah. Along with him went courageous men whose hearts God had touched. ²⁷But some despicable people said, "How can this man save us?" They despised Saul and didn't bring him gifts, but Saul didn't say anything.

Saul delivers Jabesh-gilead

^j Nahash the Ammonite king had been severely oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He gouged out everyone's right eye, thereby not allowing Israel to have a deliverer. There wasn't a single Israelite left across the Jordan River who hadn't had their right eye gouged out by the Ammonite king Nahash. But seven thousand people had escaped from the Ammonites' power and fled to Jabesh-gilead.

1Samuel 11About a month later,^k Nahash the Ammonite went up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, "Make a treaty with us, and we'll be your servants."

²"I will make a treaty with you on one condition: that everyone's right eye be gouged out!" Nahash the Ammonite said to them. "That's how I bring humiliation on all Israel."

³The elders of Jabesh replied to him, "Leave us alone for seven days so we can send messengers thoughout Israel's territory. If there's no one to save us, then we'll surrender to you."

⁴When the messengers reached Gibeah where Saul lived, they reported the news directly to the people there. Then they all wept aloud. ⁵At just that moment, Saul was coming back from keeping the cattle in the fields. "What's wrong with everybody?" he asked. "Why are they crying?" Saul was then told what the men from Jabesh had said.

⁶God's spirit came over Saul when he heard those words, and he burned with anger. ⁷He took two oxen, cut them into pieces, and sent them by messengers throughout Israel's territory. "This is exactly what will be done to the oxen of anyone who doesn't come to the aid of Saul and Samuel," he said. Great fear of the LORD came over the people, and they came to Saul completely unified.^l ⁸When Saul counted them at Bezek, the soldiers from Israel totaled three hundred thousand and those from Judah thirty thousand.

⁹The messengers who had come were then told, "Say this to the people of Jabesh-gilead: Tomorrow by the time the sun is hot, you will be saved." When the messengers returned and reported this to the people of Jabesh, they were overjoyed.

¹⁰Then the people of Jabesh told the Ammonites, "We will surrender to you tomorrow. Then you can do whatever you want to us."

¹¹The next day Saul organized his troops into three formations. They attacked the Ammonite camp during the morning watch and slaughtered them until the heat of the day. The survivors were so scattered that not even two of them could be found together.

¹²Then people asked Samuel, "Who was it who said, 'Will Saul rule over us?' Give us those people; we'll kill them!"

¹³But Saul said, "No one will be executed because today the LORD has saved Israel."

¹⁴"Let's go to Gilgal," Samuel told the people, "and renew the monarchy there."¹⁵So everyone went to Gilgal, and there at Gilgal they made Saul king in the LORD's presence. They offered well-being sacrifices in the LORD's presence, and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration there.

Samuel's last speech

1Samuel 12Samuel said to all Israel: "Listen: I have done everything you asked of me and have placed a king over you. ²The king will lead you now. I am old and gray, though my sons are still with you, and I've been your leader since I was young until now. ³So I'm here: Tell the truth about me in the presence of the LORD and his anointed. Have I ever stolen someone's ox? Have I ever taken someone's donkey? Have I ever oppressed or mistreated anyone? Have I ever taken bribes from someone and looked the other way about something? Tell me the truth.^m I will make it right."

⁴"You haven't oppressed or mistreated us, and you've never taken anything from anyone," the people answered.

⁵Samuel replied, "The LORD and his anointed one are witnesses against you today that you haven't found anything in my possession."

"Agreed," they said.

⁶Then Samuel told the people: "The witnessⁿ is indeed the LORD, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your ancestors up from the land of Egypt. ⁷So now stand here, and I will judge you in the LORD's presence because of all the LORD's righteous acts that he has done for you and your ancestors:

⁸"When Jacob entered Egypt, the Egyptians oppressed them.^o So your ancestors cried out to the LORD. The LORD then sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them here. ⁹But your ancestors forgot the LORD their God, so he handed them over to Sisera the commander of Hazor's army, and to the Philistines, and to the Moabite king, all of whom fought against them. ¹⁰Then your ancestors cried out to the LORD and said: 'We have sinned because we have abandoned the LORD and have worshipped the Baals and the Astartes. But now deliver us from the power of our enemies,

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