15. Saul replied: “They were brought from Amalek. The people spared the best sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, your God; but the rest we destroyed, putting them under the ban.”
16. Samuel said to Saul: “Stop! Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” “Speak!” he replied.
17. Samuel then said: “Though little in your own eyes, are you not chief of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king of Israel
18. and sent you on a mission, saying: Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction. Fight against them until you have exterminated them.
19. Why then have you disobeyed the Lord? You have pounced on the spoil, thus doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight.”
20. Saul explained to Samuel: “I did indeed obey the Lord and fulfill the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought back Agag, the king of Amalek, and, carrying out the ban, I have destroyed the Amalekites.
21. But from the spoil the army took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
22. But Samuel said:“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrificesas much as in obedience to the Lord’s command?Obedience is better than sacrifice,to listen, better than the fat of rams.
23. For a sin of divination is rebellion,and arrogance, the crime of idolatry.Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,the Lord in turn has rejected you as king.”
24. Saul admitted to Samuel: “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the command of the Lord and your instructions. I feared the people and obeyed them.