⁴² He said to the king, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You^(A) have set free a man I had determined should die.^[a](B) Therefore it is your life for his life,^(C) your people for his people.’”

³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally^(A) destroy^[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

¹⁹ The man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”^(A)

⁹ But Saul and the army spared^(A) Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves^[a] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

¹⁴ Moses was angry with the officers of the army^(A)—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

¹⁵ “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice^(B) and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident,^(C) so that a plague^(D) struck the Lord’s people. ¹⁷ Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,^{(E) 18} but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.