Continued from yesterday. Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the Lord for him."

   [When Elkanah went to offer the annual sacrifice,] Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, "After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always." After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When they had slaughtered the bull, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord." And he worshiped the Lord there.

   Then Hannah prayed and said: "My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in Your deliverance. There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides You; there is no Rock like our God . . . He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor."

   Then Elkanah went home to Ramah, but the boy ministered before the Lord under Eli the priest. Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice. Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, saying, "May the Lord give you children by this woman to take the place of the one she prayed for and gave to the Lord. Then they would go home. And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord. [Samuel became a prophet and judge of Israel. He anointed both Saul and David, the first two kings of Israel, at the Lord's command. God used him mightily throughout his lifetime.]

Taken from I Samuel 1, 2, The New International Version. For free Lifescope book,
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