“I am now eighty years old. Do I discern between the good and evil? Does your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Do I still hear the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be a further burden to my master the sovereign?
“And all Yisra’ĕl shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Yaroḇ‛am who shall come to the burial-site, because in him there is found a good report toward יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl, in the house of Yaroḇ‛am.
“And it shall be, as soon as I am gone from you, that the Spirit of יהוה takes you away to a place I do not know. And I shall come to report to Aḥaḇ, and when he does not find you, he shall kill me. But I your servant have feared יהוה from my youth.
And I looked, and rose up and said to the nobles, and to the deputy rulers, and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the great and awesome, יהוה, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.”
The days of our lives are seventy years; Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet the best of them is but toil and exertion; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
But if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember the days of darkness, for they are many. All that is coming is futility.
“For he shall be great before יהוה, and shall drink no wine and strong drink at all. And he shall be filled with the Set-apart Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
“But you shall remember יהוה your Elohim, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today.
But יהוה said to Shemu’ĕl, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him, for not as man sees, for man looks at the eyes, but יהוה looks at the heart.”