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Samuel anoints Saul as king
10 Samuel took a small jar of oil and poured it over Saul’s head and kissed him. “The Lord hereby anoints you leader of his people Israel,” Samuel said. “You will rule the Lord’s people and save them from the power of the enemies who surround them. And this will be the sign for you that the Lord has anointed you as leader of his very own possession:[a] 2 When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will tell you, ‘The donkeys you went looking for have been found. Now your father has stopped thinking about the donkeys and is worried about you. He’s asking: What should I do about my son?’ 3 Then, when you’ve gone on a bit farther, you will come to the oak at Tabor. Three men who are going to consult God at Bethel will meet up with you there, one carrying three young goats, one carrying three loaves of bread, and one carrying a jar of wine. 4 They will ask how you’re doing and will offer you sacrificial bread,[b] which you should accept. 5 After that, you will come to Gibeath-elohim, which is a Philistine fort. When you enter the town, you will encounter a group of prophets coming down from the shrine preceded by harps, tambourines, flutes, and lyres. They will be caught up in a prophetic frenzy. 6 Then the Lord’s spirit will come over you, and you will be caught up in a prophetic frenzy right along with them; it will be like you’ve become a completely different person. 7 Once these signs have happened to you, do whatever you would like to do, because God is with you. 8 Then go down to Gilgal ahead of me. I’ll come down to meet you to offer entirely burned offerings and to make well-being sacrifices. Wait seven days until I get to you, then I’ll tell you what you should do next.”
9 And just as Saul turned to leave Samuel’s side, God gave him a different heart, and all these signs happened that very same day. 10 When Saul and the boy got to Gibeah, there was a group of prophets coming to meet him. God’s spirit came over Saul, and he was caught up in a prophetic frenzy right along with them. 11 When all the people who had known Saul saw him prophesying with the prophets, they said to each other, “What’s happened to Kish’s son? Is Saul also one of the prophets?” 12 One of the locals then asked, “And who is their leader?”[c] So it became a proverb: “Is Saul also one of the prophets?” 13 When the prophetic frenzy was over, Saul went home.[d]
14 Saul’s uncle said to him and to his young servant, “Where did you go?”
“To look for the donkeys,” Saul replied, “but when we couldn’t find anything, we went to Samuel.”
15 “Please tell me what Samuel told you,” Saul’s uncle said.
16 “He reassured us that the donkeys had been found,” Saul answered. But Saul didn’t tell his uncle what Samuel had said about the kingship.
Saul selected as king
17 Samuel summoned the people to the Lord at Mizpah. 18 Then he told the Israelites: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the Egyptians’ power and from the power of all the kingdoms that oppressed you. 19 But today you’ve rejected your God who saved you from all your troubles and difficulties by saying, ‘No! Appoint a king over us!’ So now assemble yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and clans.”
20 Then Samuel brought all the Israelite tribes forward, and the tribe of Benjamin was selected. 21 Next Samuel brought the tribe of Benjamin forward by its families, and the family of Matri was selected. Samuel then brought the family of Matri forward, person by person,[e] and Saul, Kish’s son, was selected. But when they looked for him, he wasn’t to be found. 22 So they asked another question of the Lord: “Has the man come here yet?”
The Lord said, “Yes, he’s hiding among the supplies.” 23 They ran and retrieved Saul from there, and when he stood up in the middle of the people, he was head and shoulders taller than anyone else.
24 “Can you see the one the Lord has chosen?” Samuel asked all the people. “He has no equal among the people.”
Then the people shouted, “Long live the king!”
25 Samuel then explained to the people how the monarchy should operate[f] and wrote it in a scroll and placed it in the Lord’s presence. Then Samuel sent every person back to their homes. 26 Saul also went back to his home in Gibeah. Along with him went courageous men whose hearts God had touched. 27 But some despicable people said, “How can this man save us?” They despised Saul and didn’t bring him gifts, but Saul didn’t say anything.
Saul delivers Jabesh-gilead
[g] Nahash the Ammonite king had been severely oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He gouged out everyone’s right eye, thereby not allowing Israel to have a deliverer. There wasn’t a single Israelite left across the Jordan River who hadn’t had their right eye gouged out by the Ammonite king Nahash. But seven thousand people had escaped from the Ammonites’ power and fled to Jabesh-gilead.
11 About a month later,[h] Nahash the Ammonite went up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we’ll be your servants.”
2 “I will make a treaty with you on one condition: that everyone’s right eye be gouged out!” Nahash the Ammonite said to them. “That’s how I bring humiliation on all Israel.”
3 The elders of Jabesh replied to him, “Leave us alone for seven days so we can send messengers thoughout Israel’s territory. If there’s no one to save us, then we’ll surrender to you.”
4 When the messengers reached Gibeah where Saul lived, they reported the news directly to the people there. Then they all wept aloud. 5 At just that moment, Saul was coming back from keeping the cattle in the fields. “What’s wrong with everybody?” he asked. “Why are they crying?” Saul was then told what the men from Jabesh had said.
6 God’s spirit came over Saul when he heard those words, and he burned with anger. 7 He took two oxen, cut them into pieces, and sent them by messengers throughout Israel’s territory. “This is exactly what will be done to the oxen of anyone who doesn’t come to the aid of Saul and Samuel,” he said. Great fear of the Lord came over the people, and they came to Saul completely unified.[i] 8 When Saul counted them at Bezek, the soldiers from Israel totaled three hundred thousand and those from Judah thirty thousand.
9 The messengers who had come were then told, “Say this to the people of Jabesh-gilead: Tomorrow by the time the sun is hot, you will be saved.” When the messengers returned and reported this to the people of Jabesh, they were overjoyed.
10 Then the people of Jabesh told the Ammonites, “We will surrender to you tomorrow. Then you can do whatever you want to us.”
11 The next day Saul organized his troops into three formations. They attacked the Ammonite camp during the morning watch and slaughtered them until the heat of the day. The survivors were so scattered that not even two of them could be found together.
12 Then people asked Samuel, “Who was it who said, ‘Will Saul rule over us?’ Give us those people; we’ll kill them!”
13 But Saul said, “No one will be executed because today the Lord has saved Israel.”
14 “Let’s go to Gilgal,” Samuel told the people, “and renew the monarchy there.” 15 So everyone went to Gilgal, and there at Gilgal they made Saul king in the Lord’s presence. They offered well-being sacrifices in the Lord’s presence, and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration there.
43 Jesus responded, “Don’t grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God.[a] Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 I assure you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 Then the Jews debated among themselves, asking, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Human One[b] and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. It isn’t like the bread your ancestors ate, and then they died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60 Many of his disciples who heard this said, “This message is harsh. Who can hear it?”
61 Jesus knew that the disciples were grumbling about this and he said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What if you were to see the Human One[c] going up where he was before? 63 The Spirit is the one who gives life and the flesh doesn’t help at all. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 Yet some of you don’t believe.”Jesus knew from the beginning who wouldn’t believe and the one who would betray him. 65 He said, “For this reason I said to you that none can come to me unless the Father enables them to do so.” 66 At this, many of his disciples turned away and no longer accompanied him.
67 Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
68 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are God’s holy one.”
70 Jesus replied, “Didn’t I choose you twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” 71 He was speaking of Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
BOOK V
(Psalms 107–150)
Psalm 107
107 “Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because his faithful love lasts forever!”
2 That’s what those who are redeemed by the Lord say,
the ones God redeemed from the power of their enemies,
3 the ones God gathered from various countries,
from east and west, north and south.
4 Some of the redeemed had wandered into the desert, into the wasteland.
They couldn’t find their way to a city or town.
5 They were hungry and thirsty;
their lives were slipping away.
6 So they cried out to the Lord in their distress,
and God delivered them from their desperate circumstances.
7 God led them straight to human habitation.
8 Let them thank the Lord for his faithful love
and his wondrous works for all people,
9 because God satisfied the one who was parched with thirst,
and he filled up the hungry with good things!
10 Some of the redeemed had been sitting in darkness and deep gloom;
they were prisoners suffering in chains
11 because they had disobeyed God’s instructions
and rejected the Most High’s plans.
12 So God humbled them with hard work.
They stumbled, and there was no one to help them.
13 So they cried out to the Lord in their distress,
and God saved them from their desperate circumstances.
14 God brought them out from the darkness and deep gloom;
he shattered their chains.
15 Let them thank the Lord for his faithful love
and his wondrous works for all people,
16 because God has shattered bronze doors
and split iron bars in two!
17 Some of the redeemed were fools because of their sinful ways.
They suffered because of their wickedness.
18 They had absolutely no appetite for food;
they had arrived at death’s gates.
19 So they cried out to the Lord in their distress,
and God saved them from their desperate circumstances.
20 God gave the order and healed them;
he rescued them from their pit.
21 Let them thank the Lord for his faithful love
and his wondrous works for all people.
22 Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices
and declare what God has done in songs of joy!
23 Some of the redeemed had gone out on the ocean in ships,
making their living on the high seas.
24 They saw what the Lord had made;
they saw his wondrous works in the depths of the sea.
25 God spoke and stirred up a storm
that brought the waves up high.
26 The waves went as high as the sky;
they crashed down to the depths.
The sailors’ courage melted at this terrible situation.
27 They staggered and stumbled around like they were drunk.
None of their skill was of any help.
28 So they cried out to the Lord in their distress,
and God brought them out safe from their desperate circumstances.
29 God quieted the storm to a whisper;
the sea’s waves were hushed.
30 So they rejoiced because the waves had calmed down;
then God led them to the harbor they were hoping for.
31 Let them thank the Lord for his faithful love
and his wondrous works for all people.
32 Let them exalt God in the congregation of the people
and praise God in the assembly of the elders.
33 God turns rivers into desert,
watery springs into thirsty ground,
34 fruitful land into unproductive dirt,
when its inhabitants are wicked.
35 But God can also turn the desert into watery pools,
thirsty ground into watery springs,
36 where he settles the hungry.
They even build a city and live there!
37 They plant fields and vineyards
and obtain a fruitful harvest.
38 God blesses them, and they become many.
God won’t even let their cattle diminish.
39 But when they do diminish—
when they’re brought down by oppression, trouble, and grief—
40 God pours contempt on their leaders,
making them wander aimlessly in the wastelands.
41 But God raises the needy from their suffering;
he makes their families as numerous as sheep!
42 Those who do right see it and celebrate,
but every wicked person shuts their mouth.
43 Whoever is wise will pay attention to these things,
carefully considering the Lord’s faithful love.
15 A sensitive answer turns back wrath,
but an offensive word stirs up anger.
2 The tongue of the wise enhances knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool gushes with stupidity.
3 The Lord’s eyes are everywhere,
keeping watch on evil and good people.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible