2 Then Hannah prayed out of her deepest feelings.

¹¹ So Elkanah and his family returned home to Ramah, while Samuel remained behind with Eli the priest to minister before the Eternal One.

¹² Although Eli’s sons served as priests, they were really worthless men with no understanding of the Eternal ^13-14 or of their priestly duties. When someone presented meat as a ritual offering to the Lord, the priest would send a servant with a three-pronged fork to probe around in the pot or kettle as the sacrifice boiled; and whatever he brought up with the fork, the priest would keep as his own. They did this at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came to sacrifice.

¹⁵ The priest’s servant would even tell those who were going to burn fat as a sacrifice,

¹⁶ And if the worshiper protested, saying the priest could take whatever he wanted after the fat was burned, the servant would say,

¹⁷ Because they despised the Eternal’s ritual offerings, the Eternal One judged that the sons of Eli had sinned greatly.

¹⁸ Now Samuel was then a small boy, working in the house of the Eternal One. He wore a linen vest, one of the priestly garments. ¹⁹ His mother used to make him a new robe every year, and she would take it up to him when she and her husband came to perform the yearly sacrifice. ²⁰ On that joyful occasion, Eli would bless Elkanah and Hannah.

Then they would return home.

²¹ The Eternal One showed his favor toward Hannah again, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters, and her son Samuel grew up in the presence of the Eternal One.

²² Eli, who had grown old and tired, heard what his sons were doing to all those Israelites who came to Shiloh to perform their sacrifices. He heard that they were even having sexual relations with the women who worked at the door of the meeting tent.

But Eli’s sons did not listen to his words, for the Eternal One had already decided to destroy them.

²⁶ The boy Samuel grew tall, wise in the ways of the Lord, and in favor with God and the people he served.

²⁷ A man sent by the True God came to Eli.

6 How should we respond to all of this? Is it good to persist in a life of sin so that grace may multiply even more? ² Absolutely not! How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives? ³ Did someone forget to tell you that when we were initiated into Jesus the Anointed through baptism’s ceremonial washing,^[a] we entered into His death? ⁴ Therefore, we were buried with Him through this baptism into death so that just as God the Father, in all His glory, resurrected the Anointed One, we, too, might walk confidently out of the grave into a new life. ⁵ To put it another way: if we have been united with Him to share in a death like His, don’t you understand that we will also share in His resurrection? ⁶ We know this: whatever we used to be with our old sinful ways has been nailed to His cross. So our entire record of sin has been canceled, and we no longer have to bow down to sin’s power. ⁷ A dead man, you see, cannot be bound by sin. ⁸ But if we have died with the Anointed One, we believe that we shall also live together with Him. ⁹ So we stand firm in the conviction that death holds no power over God’s Anointed, because He was resurrected from the dead never to face death again. ¹⁰ When He died, He died to whatever power sin had, once and for all, and now He lives completely to God. ¹¹ So here is how to picture yourself now that you have been initiated into Jesus the Anointed: you are dead to sin’s power and influence, but you are alive to God’s rule.

¹² Don’t invite that insufferable tyrant of sin back into your mortal body so you won’t become obedient to its destructive desires. ¹³ Don’t offer your bodily members to sin’s service as tools of wickedness; instead, offer your body to God as those who are alive from the dead, and devote the parts of your body to God as tools for justice and goodness in this world. ¹⁴ For sin is no longer a tyrant over you; indeed you are under grace and not the law.

¹⁵ So what do we do now? Throw ourselves into lives of sin because we are cloaked in grace and don’t have to answer to the law? Absolutely not! ¹⁶ Doesn’t it make sense that if you sign yourself over as a slave, you will have to obey your master? The question before you is, What will be your master? Will it be sin—which will lead to certain death—or obedience—which will lead to a right and reconciled life? ¹⁷ Thank God that your slavery to sin has ended and that in your new freedom you pledged your heartfelt obedience to that teaching which was passed on to you. ¹⁸ The beauty of your new situation is this: now that you are free from sin, you are free to serve a different master, God’s redeeming justice.

¹⁹ Forgive me for using casual language to compensate for your natural weakness of human understanding. I want to be perfectly clear. In the same way you gave your bodily members away as slaves to corrupt and lawless living and found yourselves deeper in your unruly lives, now devote your members as slaves to right and reconciled lives so you will find yourselves deeper in holy living. ²⁰ In the days when you lived as slaves to sin, you had no obligation to do the right thing. In that regard, you were free. ²¹ But what do you have to show from your former lives besides shame? The outcome of that life is death, guaranteed. ²² But now that you have been emancipated from the death grip of sin and are God’s slave, you have a different sort of life, a growing holiness. The outcome of that life is eternal life. ²³ The payoff for a life of sin is death, but God is offering us a free gift—eternal life through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King.