1 Samuel 15:16–24

¹⁶Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”

And he said to him, “Speak on.”

¹⁷So Samuel said, ^u“When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? ¹⁸Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are ²consumed.’ ¹⁹Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the ³spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”

²⁰And Saul said to Samuel, ^v“But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ^21wBut the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

²²So Samuel said:

^x“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

As in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, ^yto obey is better than sacrifice,

And to heed than the fat of rams.

²³For rebellion is as the sin of ⁴witchcraft,

And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

^zHe also has rejected you from being king.”

^24aThen Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I ^bfeared the people and obeyed their voice.