File:Saul Rejected as King.jpg

Summary
Saul Rejected As King 1 Samuel 15:10 - 15:31 Golden Text: To obey is better than sacrifice. '''1 Samuel 15:22

15:10. The word of the Lord came to Samuel,

'''15:11. I regret that I have made Saul king: for he has forsaken me, and has not executed my commandments. Samuel was grieved, and he cried unto the Lord all night.'''

'''15:12. 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. 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 Amalek.'''

15:13. When Samuel had come to Saul, Saul said to him: Blessed be you of the Lord, I have fulfilled the word of the Lord.

15:14. Samuel said: What then does this bleating of the flocks mean, which sounds in my ears, and the lowing of the herds, which I hear?

15:15. Saul said: They have brought them from Amalek: 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.

'''15:16. Samuel said to Saul: Suffer me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me this night. He said to him: Speak.'''

'''15:17. Samuel said: When you were a little one in your own eyes, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you to be king over Israel.'''

15:18. The Lord sent you on the way, and said: Go, and kill the sinners of Amalek, and you shall fight against them until you have utterly destroyed them.

15:19. 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?

15:20. 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 Amalek, and Amalek I have slain.

15:21. But the people took of the spoils, sheep and oxen, as the first fruits of those things that were slain, to offer sacrifice to the Lord their God in Galgal.

'''15:22. 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 or rams.'''

'''15:23. 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.'''

15:24. 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.

15:25. But now bear, I beseech you, my sin, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord.

15:26. 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.

15:27. Samuel turned about to go away: but he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent.

15:28. Samuel said to him: The Lord has rent the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.

15:29. But the triumpher in Israel will not spare, and will not be moved to repentance: for he is not a man that he should repent.

15:30. Then he said: I have sinned: yet honor me now before the ancients of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord your God.

15:31. So Samuel turned again after Saul: and Saul adored the Lord.

Saul Rejected as King; as in 1 Samuel 15:13-23; illustration from a Bible card published by the Providence Lithograph Company Date: 1902