1 Samuel 2:10–17

^10uThe adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces;

^vagainst them he will thunder in heaven.

^wThe Lord will judge the ends of the earth;

he will give strength to his king

^xand exalt the horn of his anointed.”

¹¹Then Elkanah went home ^yto Ramah. ^zAnd the boy¹ was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli the priest.

Eli’s Worthless Sons

¹²Now the sons of Eli were ^aworthless men. ^bThey did not know the Lord. ¹³The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant would come, while the meat was boiling, with a three-pronged fork in his hand, ¹⁴and he would thrust it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. All that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. ¹⁵Moreover, ^cbefore the fat was burned, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who was sacrificing, “Give meat for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you but only raw.” ¹⁶And if the man said to him, “Let them burn the fat first, and then take as much as you wish,” he would say, “No, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force.” ¹⁷Thus the sin of the young men was very great ^din the sight of the Lord, ^efor the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.