And when the king went by, crying out to him he said, Your servant went out into the fight; and a man came out to me with another man and said, Keep this man: if by any chance he gets away, your life will be the price of his life, or you will have to give a talent of silver in payment.
But while your servant was turning this way and that, he was gone. Then the king of Israel said to him, You are responsible; you have given the decision against yourself.
And he said to him, These are the words of the Lord: Because you have let go from your hands the man whom I had put to the curse, your life will be taken for his life, and your people for his people.
Then the man of God was angry with him and said, If you had done it five or six times, then you would have overcome Aram completely; but now you will only overcome them three times.
From his store-house the Lord has taken the instruments of his wrath: for the Lord, the Lord of armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldaeans.
But do you, without waiting, go after their army, attacking them from the back; do not let them get into their towns, for the Lord your God has given them into your hands.
A curse, a curse on Meroz! said the angel of the Lord. A bitter curse on her townspeople! Because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord among the strong ones.
Go now and put Amalek to the sword, putting to the curse all they have, without mercy: put to death every man and woman, every child and baby at the breast, every ox and sheep, camel and ass.
But Saul and the people did not put Agag to death, and they kept the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fat beasts and the lambs, and whatever was good, not desiring to put them to the curse: but everything which was bad and of no use they put to the curse.