CHAPTER 2
1 And Hannah worshipped, and said, Mine heart fully joyed in the Lord, and mine horn is raised in my God; my mouth is alarged on mine enemies, for I was glad in thine health.
2 None is holy as the Lord is; for none other is, except thee, and none is strong as our God.
3 Do not ye multiply to speak high things, and have glory therein; eld [or old] things go away from your mouth; for God is Lord of knowings, and thoughts be made ready to him.
4 The bow of strong men is over-come, and feeble men be girded with strength.
5 Men full-filled before, setted them-selves to hire for loaves, and hungry men be filled; while the barren woman childed full many, and she that had many sons, was made sick.
6 The Lord slayeth, and quickeneth; he leadeth forth to hells, and bringeth again.
7 The Lord maketh poor, and he maketh rich; he maketh low, and he raiseth up.
8 He raiseth a needy man from powder, and he raiseth a poor man from drit, that he sit with princes, and hold the seat of glory; for the ends of [the] earth be of the Lord, and he hath set the world on those [or them].
9 He shall keep the feet of his saints, and wicked men shall be still altogether in darknesses; for a man shall not be made strong in his own strength.
10 [The] Adversaries of the Lord shall dread him, and from heavens he shall thunder upon them; the Lord shall deem the ends of [the] earth, and he shall give lordship to his king, and he shall enhance the horn, that is, power, of his Christ, or his anointed.
11 And Elkanah went into Ramah, into his house; and the child was a servant in the sight of the Lord before the face of Eli the priest.
12 Forsooth the sons of Eli were the sons of Belial, and they knew not the Lord,
13 neither the office of priests to the people; but whoever had offered sacrifice, the child or servant of the priest came, while the fleshes were in seething, and he had a fleshhook with three teeth in his hand;
14 and he sent it into the great vessel of stone, either into the cauldron, either into the pot, either into the pan; and whatever thing the fleshhook raised, the priest took that to himself; so they did to all Israel of men coming into Shiloh.
15 Yea, before that they burnt the inner fatness, the priest’s child came, and said to the offerer, Give thou flesh to me or Give to me the flesh, that I seethe it to the priest; for I shall not take of thee sodden flesh, but raw.
16 And he that offered said to him, Be first the inner fatness burnt today after the custom, and take thou then to thee how much ever thy soul desireth. The which answered, and said to him, Nay, but thou shalt give it now; for else I shall take it by violence.
17 Therefore the sin of the children or young men was full grievous before the Lord; for they withdrew men from the sacrifice of the Lord.
18 Forsooth Samuel, a child girded with a linen cloth, ministered before the face of the Lord.
19 And his mother made to him a little coat, the which she brought to him in the days ordained to offer, and she went up with her husband, that he would offer a solemn offering, and his avow [or vow].
20 And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife; and said, The Lord yield to thee seed of this woman, for the gift which thou hast given to the Lord. And they went into their place again.
21 Therefore the Lord visited Hannah, and she conceived, and childed three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel was magnified at the Lord.
22 And Eli was full eld [or old], and he heard all the things that his sons did in all Israel, and how they slept with women, that waited at the door of the tabernacle.
23 And he said to them, Why do ye such things, the worst things, which I hear of all the people?
24 Do not ye, my sons; it is not a good fame, that I hear, that ye make the Lord’s people to do trespass.
25 If a man sinneth against a man, God may be pleased to him by prayers and sacrifices; but if a man sinneth against the Lord, who shall pray for him? And they heard not the voice of their father, for God would slay them.
26 Forsooth the child Samuel profited, and increased, and pleased both God and men.
27 Soothly a man of God came to Eli, and said to him, The Lord saith these things, Whether I was not showed apertly to the house of thy father, when he was in Egypt, in the house of Pharaoh?
28 And I chose him of all the lineages of Israel to be a priest to me, that he should go up to mine altar, and should burn incense to me, and that he should bear before me a priest’s cloth; and I gave to the house of thy father all things of the sacrifices of the sons of Israel.
29 Why hast thou cast away with the heel my sacrifice, and my gifts, which I [have] commanded to be offered in the temple; and thou honouredest more thy sons than me, that ye eat the principal parts of each sacrifice of Israel my people?
30 Therefore the Lord God of Israel saith these things, I speaking spake, that thine house, and the house of thy father, should minister in my sight till into without end; now forsooth the Lord saith, Far be this from me; but whoever honoureth me, I shall glorify him; forsooth they that despise me, shall be unnoble.
31 Lo! [the] days come, and I shall cut away thine arm, or thy power, and the arm of the house of thy father, that an eld [or old] man be not in thine house.
32 And thou shalt see thine enemy in the temple, in all the prosperities of Israel; and an eld [or old] man shall not be in thine house in all days.
33 Nevertheless I shall not utterly take away of thee a man from mine altar, but that thine eyes fail, and thy soul fail or thy life languish; and a great part of thine house shall die, when it shall come to man’s age.
34 Forsooth this shall be [the] sign, that shall come to thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas; both they shall die in one day.
35 And I shall raise to me a faithful priest, that shall do by mine heart and my soul; and I shall build to him a faithful house, and he shall go before my Christ, or mine anointed in all days.
36 Forsooth it shall come, that who-ever [still] dwelleth in thine house, that he come to bow for himself, in an half-penny of silver, and a cake of bread, and say, I beseech, suffer thou me to one part of the priests’ offices, that I eat a morsel of bread.