The Lord said, ‘I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son! ’ Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him.
But God said, ‘No. Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a permanent covenant for his future offspring.
The Lord paid attention to Hannah’s need, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.
She and her daughters-in-law set out to return from the territory of Moab, because she had heard in Moab that the Lord had paid attention to his people’s need by providing them with food.
Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will certainly come to your aid and bring you up from this land to the land he swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’
Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,
‘Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt.
They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst, because you did not recognise the time when God visited you.’
The next morning Elkanah and Hannah got up early to worship before the Lord. Afterwards, they returned home to Ramah. Then Elkanah was intimate with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her.