1 Samuel 3

Common English Bible

Samuel’s call

3 Now the boy Samuel was serving the Lord under Eli. The Lord’s word was rare at that time, and visions weren’t widely known. ²One day Eli, whose eyes had grown so weak he was unable to see, was lying down in his room. ³God’s lamp hadn’t gone out yet, and Samuel was lying down in the Lord’s temple, where God’s chest^[a] was.

⁴The Lord called to Samuel. “I’m here,” he said.

⁵Samuel hurried to Eli and said, “I’m here. You called me?”

“I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go lie down.” So he did.

⁶Again the Lord called Samuel, so Samuel got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?”

“I didn’t call, my son,” Eli replied. “Go and lie down.”

(⁷Now Samuel didn’t yet know the Lord, and the Lord’s word hadn’t yet been revealed to him.)

⁸A third time the Lord called Samuel. He got up, went to Eli, and said, “I’m here. You called me?”

Then Eli realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy. ⁹So Eli said to Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down where he’d been.

¹⁰Then the Lord came and stood there, calling just as before, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel said, “Speak. Your servant is listening.”

¹¹The Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of all who hear it tingle! ¹²On that day, I will bring to pass against Eli everything I said about his household—every last bit of it!^[b] ¹³I told him that I would punish his family forever because of the wrongdoing he knew about—how his sons were cursing God,^[c] but he wouldn’t stop them. ¹⁴Because of that I swore about Eli’s household that his family’s wrongdoing will never be reconciled by sacrifice or by offering.”

¹⁵Samuel lay there until morning, then opened the doors of the Lord’s house. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. ¹⁶But Eli called Samuel, saying: “Samuel, my son!”

“I’m here,” Samuel said.

¹⁷“What did he say to you?” Eli asked. “Don’t hide anything from me. May God deal harshly with you and worse still if you hide from me a single word from everything he said to you.” ¹⁸So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him.

“He is the Lord, ” Eli said. “He will do as he pleases.”

¹⁹So Samuel grew up, and the Lord was with him, not allowing any of his words to fail. ²⁰All Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was trustworthy as the Lord’s prophet. ²¹The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh because the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh through the Lord’s own word.

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Footnotes

1 Samuel 3:3 Traditionally ark
1 Samuel 3:12 Or the beginning and the end
1 Samuel 3:13 LXX; MT to themselves, one of several intentional scribal corrections to avoid the phrase cursing God

Jeremiah 1:1-10

Common English Bible

Introduction

1 These are the words of Jeremiah, Hilkiah’s son, who was one of the priests from Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. ²The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of Judah’s King Josiah, Amon’s son, ³and throughout the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, Josiah’s son, when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.

Call of Jeremiah

⁴The Lord’s word came to me:

⁵“Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I made you a prophet to the nations.”
⁶“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
    because I’m only a child.”
⁷The Lord responded,
    “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
        Where I send you, you must go;
        what I tell you, you must say.
⁸Don’t be afraid of them,
    because I’m with you to rescue you,”
        declares the Lord.
⁹Then the Lord stretched out his hand,
    touched my mouth, and said to me,
    “I’m putting my words in your mouth.
¹⁰This very day I appoint you over nations and empires,
    to dig up and pull down,
    to destroy and demolish,
    to build and plant.”