3. Don’t keep speaking so arrogantly,letting proud talk come out of your mouth!For the Lord is a God who knows;he evaluates what people do.
4. The bows of warriors are shattered,but those who stumble find their strength reinforced.
5. Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food,but the hungry no longer lack.Even the barren woman gives birth to seven,but the one with many children withers away.
6. The Lord both kills and gives life;he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7. The Lord impoverishes and makes wealthy;he humbles and he exalts.
8. He lifts the weak from the dust;he raises the poor from the ash heapto seat them with princesand to bestow on them an honored position.The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord,and he has placed the world on them.
9. He watches over his holy ones,but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.
10. The Lord shatters his adversaries;he thunders against them from the heavens.The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.He will strengthen his kingand exalt the power of his anointed one.”
11. Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah. But the boy was serving the Lord under the supervision of Eli the priest.
12. The sons of Eli were wicked men. They did not recognize the Lord’s authority.
13. Now the priests would always treat the people in the following way: Whenever anyone was making a sacrifice, while the meat was boiling, the priest’s attendant would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand.
14. He would jab it into the basin, kettle, caldron, or pot, and everything that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they used to do to all the Israelites when they came there to Shiloh.
15. Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s attendant would come and say to the person who was making the sacrifice, “Hand over some meat for the priest to roast! He won’t take boiled meat from you, but only raw.”
16. If the individual said to him, “First let the fat be burned away, and then take for yourself whatever you wish,” he would say, “No! Hand it over right now! If you don’t, I will take it forcibly!”