Saul said, “Let’s go after the Philistines tonight and rob them. We won’t let any of them live!” The men answered, “Do whatever you think is best.” But the priest said, “Let’s ask God.”
They still come every day looking for me and want to learn my ways. They act just like a nation that does what is right, that obeys the commands of its God. They ask me to judge them fairly. They want God to be near them.
He must stand before Eleazar the priest, and Eleazar will get advice from the Lord by using the Urim. At his command all the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will all come in.”
Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure.
but don’t stay there yourselves. Continue chasing the enemy and attacking them from behind. Don’t let them get to their cities, because the Lord your God will hand them over to you.”
The people of Israel kept for themselves everything they found in the cities, including all the animals. But they killed all the people there; they left no one alive.
Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, said to her, “Do what you think is best. You may stay home until the boy is old enough to eat. May the Lord do what you have said.” So Hannah stayed at home to nurse her son until he was old enough to eat.
The next morning Saul divided his soldiers into three groups. At dawn they entered the Ammonite camp and defeated them before the heat of the day. The Ammonites who escaped were scattered; no two of them were still together.
One man was Ahijah who was wearing the holy vest. (Ahijah was a son of Ichabod’s brother Ahitub. Ichabod was the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord’s priest in Shiloh.) No one knew Jonathan had left.