1 Samuel 15:10-23

Living Bible

¹⁰ Then the Lord said to Samuel, ¹¹ “I am sorry that I ever made Saul king, for he has again refused to obey me.”

Samuel was so deeply moved when he heard what God was saying, that he cried to the Lord all night. ¹² Early the next morning he went out to find Saul. Someone said that he had gone to Mount Carmel to erect a monument to himself and had then gone on to Gilgal. ¹³ When Samuel finally found him, Saul greeted him cheerfully.

“Hello there,” he said. “Well, I have carried out the Lord’s command!”

¹⁴ “Then what was all the bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen I heard?” Samuel demanded.

¹⁵ “It’s true that the army spared the best of the sheep and oxen,” Saul admitted, “but they are going to sacrifice them to the Lord your God; and we have destroyed everything else.”

¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Listen to what the Lord told me last night!”

“What was it?” Saul asked.

¹⁷ And Samuel told him, “When you didn’t think much of yourself, God made you king of Israel. ¹⁸ And he sent you on an errand and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ ¹⁹ Then why didn’t you obey the Lord? Why did you rush for the loot and do exactly what God said not to?”

²⁰ “But I have obeyed the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I did what he told me to; and I brought King Agag but killed everyone else. ²¹ And it was only when my troops demanded it that I let them keep the best of the sheep and oxen and loot to sacrifice to the Lord.”

²² Samuel replied, “Has the Lord as much pleasure in your burnt offerings and sacrifices as in your obedience? Obedience is far better than sacrifice. He is much more interested in your listening to him than in your offering the fat of rams to him. ²³ For rebellion is as bad as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as bad as worshiping idols. And now because you have rejected the word of Jehovah, he has rejected you from being king.”