3. ‘Do not keep talking so proudlyor let your mouth speak such arrogance,for the Lord is a God who knows,and by him deeds are weighed.
4. ‘The bows of the warriors are broken,but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5. Those who were full hire themselves out for food,but those who were hungry are hungry no more.She who was barren has borne seven children,but she who has had many sons pines away.
6. ‘The Lord brings death and makes alive;he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7. The Lord sends poverty and wealth;he humbles and he exalts.
8. He raises the poor from the dustand lifts the needy from the ash heap;he seats them with princesand makes them inherit a throne of honour.‘For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;on them he has set the world.
9. He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.‘It is not by strength that one prevails;
10. those who oppose the Lord will be broken.The Most High will thunder from heaven;the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.‘He will give strength to his kingand exalt the horn of his anointed.’
11. Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest.
12. Eli’s sons were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord.
13. Now it was the practice of the priests that, whenever any of the people offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come with a three-pronged fork in his hand while the meat was being boiled
14. and would plunge the fork into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. Whatever the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.
15. But even before the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the person who was sacrificing, ‘Give the priest some meat to roast; he won’t accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.’
16. If the person said to him, ‘Let the fat be burned first, and then take whatever you want,’ the servant would answer, ‘No, hand it over now; if you don’t, I’ll take it by force.’
17. This sin of the young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for theyb were treating the Lord’s offering with contempt.
18. But Samuel was ministering before the Lord – a boy wearing a linen ephod.
19. Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.