⁵ and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. ^(A)Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”

²¹ Then ^(A)they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul ^(B)the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.

Laws Concerning Israel's Kings

¹⁴ “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ^(A)‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ ¹⁵ you may indeed set a king over you ^(B)whom the Lord your God will choose. One ^(C)from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

^17 (A)Is it not wheat harvest today? ^(B)I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that ^(C)your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.”

The Lord Grants Israel's Request

¹⁹ But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, ^20 (A)that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. ⁷ And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, ^(A)for they have not rejected you, ^(B)but they have rejected me from being king over them. ⁸ According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.