3. Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
4. Saul alerted the army, and at Telaim reviewed two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah.
5. Saul went to the city of Amalek and set up an ambush in the wadi.
6. He warned the Kenites: “Leave Amalek, turn aside and come down so I will not have to destroy you with them, for you were loyal to the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” After the Kenites left,
7. Saul routed Amalek from Havilah to the approaches of Shur, on the frontier of Egypt.
8. He took Agag, king of Amalek, alive, but the rest of the people he destroyed by the sword, putting them under the ban.
9. He and his troops spared Agag and the best of the fat sheep and oxen, and the lambs. They refused to put under the ban anything that was worthwhile, destroying only what was worthless and of no account.
10. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel:
11. I regret having made Saul king, for he has turned from me and has not kept my command. At this Samuel grew angry and cried out to the Lord all night.
12. Early in the morning he went to meet Saul, but was informed that Saul had gone to Carmel, where he set up a monument in his own honor, and that on his return he had gone down to Gilgal.
13. When Samuel came to him, Saul greeted him: “The Lord bless you! I have kept the command of the Lord.”
14. But Samuel asked, “What, then, is this bleating of sheep that comes to my ears, the lowing of oxen that I hear?”
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.