²⁷Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him: “Thus says Yahweh: ‘Did I not clearly reveal myself to the house of your ancestor^w when they were in Egypt under the house of Pharaoh? ²⁸And I chose him from all the tribes of Israel to be a priest to me, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, and to bear an ephod before me. I gave to the house of your ancestor^x all the offerings made by fire by the Israelites.^y ²⁹Why do you despise my sacrifice and my offering which I commanded for my dwelling place, while you honored your sons more than me by making yourselves fat from the best of all the offerings of my people Israel? ³⁰Therefore,’ declares^z Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘though I solemnly said that your house and the house of your ancestor^a would walk before me forever, but now,’ declares^b Yahweh, ‘far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me, I will treat with contempt! ³¹Look, days are coming when I will cut off your strength^c and the strength^d of the house of your ancestor^e so that no one in your house will live to old age.^f ³²You will look at the distress of my dwelling place, despite all the good caused for Israel, but there will never be an old man in your household forever!^g ³³The only one I will not cut off from my altar is you.^h Rather, to cause your eyes to fail and to cause your soul to grieve, all the members of your householdⁱ will die as men.^j ³⁴This is the sign for you that will come regarding your two sons Hophni and Phinehas: they will both die on the same day! ³⁵But I will raise up for myself a reliable^k priest; he will do just according to what is in my heart and in my soul. I will build for him a lasting^l house and he will walk continually before my anointed one forever.^m ³⁶All the remainder of your household will come to bow down beforeⁿ him for a bit of silver or a loaf of bread and will say, “Please assign me to one of the priestly offices^o so that I can eat a morsel of bread.” ’ ”

Read in Logos

Footnotes

wOr “father,” meaning Aaron
xOr “father”
yLiterally “sons/children of Israel”
zLiterally “the declaration of”
aOr “father”
bLiterally “the declaration of”
cLiterally “arm,” figurative of “strength” in the context of “descendants”
dLiterally “arm,” figurative of “strength” in the context of “descendants”
eOr “father”
fLiterally “from being old in your house”
gLiterally “all the days”
hUnderstanding the beth preposition as a beth essentiae
iLiterally “all the abundance of your house”
jOr “in their prime”; some Greek and other manuscripts supply “sword” (“will die by the sword of men”)
kOr “faithful”
lHebrew “faithful” or “reliable”
mLiterally “all the days”
nLiterally “to”
oLiterally “priesthoods”