¹ Hannah prayed, and said: "My heart exults in Yahweh! My horn is exalted in Yahweh. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation.

² There is no one as holy as Yahweh, For there is no one besides you, nor is there any rock like our God.

³ "Talk no more so exceeding proudly. Don't let arrogance come out of your mouth, For Yahweh is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.

⁴ "The bows of the mighty men are broken. Those who stumbled are armed with strength.

⁵ Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread. Those who were hungry have ceased [to hunger]. Yes, the barren has borne seven. She who has many children languishes.

⁶ "Yahweh kills, and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol, and brings up.

⁷ Yahweh makes poor, and makes rich. He brings low, he also lifts up.

⁸ He raises up the poor out of the dust. He lifts up the needy from the dunghill, To make them sit with princes, and inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are Yahweh's. He has set the world on them.

⁹ He will keep the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness; for no man shall prevail by strength.

¹⁰ Those who strive with Yahweh shall be broken to pieces. He will thunder against them in the sky. "Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed."

¹¹ Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. The child did minister to Yahweh before Eli the priest.

¹² Now the sons of Eli were base men; they didn't know Yahweh.

¹³ The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand;

¹⁴ and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest took therewith. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

¹⁵ Yes, before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man who sacrificed, "Give meat to roast for the priest; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but raw."

¹⁶ If the man said to him, "Let the fat be burned first, and then take as much as your soul desires;" then he would say, "No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force."

¹⁷ The sin of the young men was very great before Yahweh; for the men despised the offering of Yahweh.

¹⁸ But Samuel ministered before Yahweh, being a child, clothed with a linen ephod.

¹⁹ Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.

²⁰ Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, "Yahweh give you seed of this woman for the petition which was asked of Yahweh." They went to their own home.

²¹ Yahweh visited Hannah, and she conceived, and bore three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew before Yahweh.

²² Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they lay with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

²³ He said to them, "Why do you do such things? for I hear of your evil dealings from all this people.

²⁴ No, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: you make Yahweh's people disobey.

²⁵ If one man sin against another, God shall judge him; but if a man sin against Yahweh, who shall entreat for him?" Notwithstanding, they didn't listen to the voice of their father, because Yahweh was minded to kill them.

²⁶ The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh, and also with men.

²⁷ A man of God came to Eli, and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Did I reveal myself to the house of your father, when they were in Egypt [in bondage] to Pharaoh's house?

²⁸ Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? Did I give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire?

²⁹ Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?'

³⁰ "Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, 'I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.' But now Yahweh says, 'Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

³¹ Behold, the days come, that I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father's house, that there shall not be an old man in your house.

³² You shall see the affliction of [my] habitation, in all the wealth which [God] shall give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.

³³ The man of yours, [whom] I shall not cut off from my altar, [shall be] to consume your eyes, and to grieve your heart; and all the increase of your house shall die in the flower of their age.

³⁴ "'This shall be the sign to you, that shall come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.

³⁵ I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before my anointed forever.

³⁶ It shall happen, that everyone who is left in your house shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say, "Please put me into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread."'"

¹ Then he brought me back by the way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looks toward the east; and it was shut.

² Yahweh said to me, This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut.

³ As for the prince, he shall sit therein as prince to eat bread before Yahweh; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same.

⁴ Then he brought me by the way of the north gate before the house; and I looked, and behold, the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh: and I fell on my face.

⁵ Yahweh said to me, Son of man, mark well, and see with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I tell you concerning all the ordinances of the house of Yahweh, and all its laws; and mark well the entrance of the house, with every exit of the sanctuary.

⁶ You shall tell the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: you house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations,

⁷ in that you have brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to profane it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant, [to add] to all your abominations.

⁸ You have not performed the duty of my holy things; but you have set performers of my duty in my sanctuary for yourselves.

⁹ Thus says the Lord Yahweh, No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any foreigners who are among the children of Israel.

¹⁰ But the Levites who went far from me, when Israel went astray, who went astray from me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity.

¹¹ Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having oversight at the gates of the house, and ministering in the house: they shall kill the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them.

¹² Because they ministered to them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel; therefore have I lifted up my hand against them, says the Lord Yahweh, and they shall bear their iniquity.

¹³ They shall not come near to me, to execute the office of priest to me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, to the things that are most holy; but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.

¹⁴ Yet will I make them performers of the duty of the house, for all its service, and for all that shall be done therein.

¹⁵ But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister to me; and they shall stand before me to offer to me the fat and the blood, says the Lord Yahweh:

¹⁶ they shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my instruction.

¹⁷ It shall be that, when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come on them, while they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within.

¹⁸ They shall have linen tires on their heads, and shall have linen breeches on their waists; they shall not clothe themselves with [anything that causes] sweat.

¹⁹ When they go forth into the outer court, even into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments in which they minister, and lay them in the holy rooms; and they shall put on other garments, that they not sanctify the people with their garments.

²⁰ Neither shall they shave their heads, nor allow their locks to grow long; they shall only cut off the hair of their heads.

²¹ Neither shall any of the priests drink wine, when they enter into the inner court.

²² Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her who is put away; but they shall take virgins of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest.

²³ They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.

²⁴ In a controversy they shall stand to judge; according to my ordinances shall they judge it: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all my appointed feasts; and they shall make my Sabbaths holy.

²⁵ They shall go in to no dead person to defile themselves; but for father, or for mother, or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister who has had no husband, they may defile themselves.

²⁶ After he is cleansed, they shall reckon to him seven days.

²⁷ In the day that he goes into the sanctuary, into the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, says the Lord Yahweh.

²⁸ They shall have an inheritance: I am their inheritance; and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.

²⁹ They shall eat the meal offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering; and every devoted thing in Israel shall be theirs.

³⁰ The first of all the first fruits of every thing, and every offering of everything, of all your offerings, shall be for the priest: you shall also give to the priests the first of your dough, to cause a blessing to rest on your house.

³¹ The priests shall not eat of anything that dies of itself, or is torn, whether it be bird or animal.