The Lord Rejects Saul

1 And Samuel said to Saul, ^c“The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel ^din opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and ^edevote to destruction¹ all that they have. Do not spare them, ^fbut kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

4 So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to ^gthe Kenites, “Go, depart; go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. ^hFor you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 ⁱAnd Saul defeated the Amalekites from ^jHavilah as far as ^kShur, which is east of Egypt. 8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive ^land devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 ^mBut Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves² and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.

10 The word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 ⁿ“I regret³ that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and ^ohas not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. 12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to ^pCarmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” 13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, ^q“Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, ^rfor the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”

17 And Samuel said, ^s“Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? ^tWhy did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, ^u“I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 ^vBut the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,

24 Saul said to Samuel, ^b“I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and ^creturn with me that I may bow before the Lord.” 26 And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. ^dFor you have rejected the word of the Lord, ^eand the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 ^fAs Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. 28 And Samuel said to him, ^g“The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel ^hwill not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” 30 Then he said, “I have sinned; yet ⁱhonor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, ^jand return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.” 31 So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord.

32 Then Samuel said, “Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully.⁴ Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” 33 And Samuel said, ^k“As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord ^lin Gilgal.

34 Then Samuel went ^mto Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in ⁿGibeah of Saul. 35 ^oAnd Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, ^pbut Samuel grieved over Saul. ^qAnd the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Submission to the Authorities

1 Let every person ^pbe subject to the governing authorities. For ^qthere is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you ^rwill receive his approval, 4 for ^she is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, ^tan avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also ^ufor the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 ^vPay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Fulfilling the Law Through Love

8 ^wOwe no one anything, except to love each other, for ^xthe one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, ^y“You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ^z“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore ^alove is the fulfilling of the law.

11 Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you ^bto wake from sleep. ^cFor salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 ^dThe night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us ^ecast off ^fthe works of darkness and ^gput on the armor of light. 13 ^hLet us walk properly as in the daytime, ⁱnot in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, ^jnot in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But ^kput on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, ^lto gratify its desires.

The Fall of Jerusalem Recounted

1 ^cZedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, ^daccording to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3 For because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence.

And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 ^eAnd in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. 5 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 7 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled and went out from the city by night by the way of a gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. 8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. 9 Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. 10 The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at ^fRiblah. 11 ^gHe put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and the king of Babylon took him to Babylon, and put him in prison ^gtill the day of his death.

The Temple Burned

12 ^hIn the fifth month, on ⁱthe tenth day of the month—that was ^jthe nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, who ^kserved the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. 13 And he burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 14 And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. 15 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people who were left in the city and ^lthe deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the artisans. 16 But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.

17 And the ^mpillars of bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and the stands and the ⁿbronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and ^ocarried all the bronze to Babylon. 18 And they took away ^pthe pots and the shovels and the snuffers and the basins and the dishes for incense and all the vessels of bronze used in the temple service; 19 ^qalso the small bowls and the fire pans and the basins and the pots and ^rthe lampstands and ^sthe dishes for incense ^sand the bowls for drink offerings. What was of gold the captain of the guard took away as gold, and what was of silver, as silver. 20 As for the two pillars, the one sea, ^tthe twelve bronze bulls that were under the sea,¹ and the stands, which Solomon the king had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these things was beyond weight. 21 As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits,^{2 u}its circumference was twelve cubits, and its thickness was four fingers, and it was hollow. 22 On it was a capital of bronze. The height of the one capital was ^vfive cubits. A network and pomegranates, all of bronze, were around the capital. And the second pillar had the same, with pomegranates. 23 There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were a hundred upon the network all around.

The People Exiled to Babylon

24 And the captain of the guard took ^wSeraiah the chief priest, and ^xZephaniah the second priest and the three keepers of the threshold; 25 and from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the men of war, and ^yseven men of the king’s council, who were found in the city; and the secretary of the commander of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the midst of the city. 26 And Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at ^zRiblah. 27 And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at ^zRiblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken into exile out of its land.

28 This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: ^ain the seventh year, 3,023 Judeans; 29 ^bin the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem 832 persons; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Judeans 745 persons; all the persons were 4,600.

Jehoiachin Released from Prison

31 ^cAnd in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed^{3 d}Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. 32 And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of ^ethe kings who were with him in Babylon. 33 So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table, 34 and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, according to his daily needs, until the day of his death, as long as he lived.

Into Your Hand I Commit My Spirit

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.