Then the woman said, “Why have you decided this way against the people of God? When you judge this way, you show that you are guilty for not bringing back your son who was forced to leave home.
“You must tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: I took you from the pasture and from tending the sheep and made you leader of my people Israel.
Go back and tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Jeroboam, I chose you from among all the people and made you the leader of my people Israel.
Elijah answered, “I have not made trouble in Israel. You and your father’s family have made all this trouble by not obeying the Lord’s commands. You have gone after the Baals.
But I was busy doing other things, so the man ran away.” The king of Israel answered, “You have already said what the punishment is. You must do what the man said.”
The prophet said to the king, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You freed the man I said should die, so your life will be taken instead of his. The lives of your people will also be taken instead of the lives of his people.’ ”
O king, you are that tree! You have become great and powerful, like the tall tree that touched the sky. Your power reaches to the far parts of the earth.
Samuel said, “You acted foolishly! You haven’t obeyed the command of the Lord your God. If you had obeyed him, the Lord would have made your kingdom continue in Israel always,
Samuel said, “Once you didn’t think much of yourself, but now you have become the leader of the tribes of Israel. The Lord appointed you to be king over Israel.
So Samuel took the container of olive oil and poured it on Jesse’s youngest son to appoint him in front of his brothers. From that day on, the Lord’s Spirit worked in David. Samuel then went back to Ramah.
He thought, “I will let her marry David. Then she will be a trap for him, and the Philistines will defeat him.” So Saul said to David a second time, “You may become my son-in-law.”
David stayed in the desert hideouts and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Every day Saul looked for David, but the Lord did not surrender David to him.
Someone told Saul that David was now at Keilah. Saul said, “God has handed David over to me! He has trapped himself, because he has entered a town with gates and bars.”