4. Then all Israel heard the report, “Saul has struck the garrison of the Philistines! Israel has become odious to the Philistines!” Then the army was called up to Saul in Gilgal.
5. The Philistines also assembled for battle against Israel, with thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and foot soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They came up and encamped in Michmash, east of Beth-aven.
6. When the soldiers saw they were in danger because the army was hardpressed, they hid themselves in caves, thickets, rocks, caverns, and cisterns.
7. Other Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul, however, held out in Gilgal, all his army trembling in fear behind him.
8. He waited seven days, until the appointed time Samuel had set, but Samuel did not come, and the army deserted Saul.
9. He then said, “Bring me the burnt offering and communion offerings!” Then he sacrificed the burnt offering.
10. As he finished sacrificing the burnt offering, there came Samuel! So Saul went out toward him in order to greet him.
11. Samuel asked him, “What have you done?” Saul explained: “When I saw that the army was deserting me and you did not come on the appointed day, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash,
12. I said to myself, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not yet sought the Lord’s blessing.’ So I thought I should sacrifice the burnt offering.”
13. Samuel replied to Saul: “You have acted foolishly! Had you kept the command the Lord your God gave you, the Lord would now establish your kingship in Israel forever;
14. but now your kingship shall not endure. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart to appoint as ruler over his people because you did not observe what the Lord commanded you.”