3. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not have compassion on them but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ”
4. So Saul summoned the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah.
5. Then Saul came to the city of Amalek and laid an ambush in the valley.
6. Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
7. Then Saul struck the Amalekites from Havilah until you come to Shur, which is near Egypt.
8. He took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
9. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, oxen, fatlings, and lambs. And of all that was good, they were not willing to utterly destroy them. But everything that was despised and weak, that they completely destroyed.
10. Then came the word of the Lord to Samuel, saying,
11. “I regret that I have set up Saul to be king because he has turned back from following Me, and he has not carried out My words.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried to the Lord all night.
12. When Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel and set himself up a monument. Then he turned and has passed on down to Gilgal.”
13. Samuel came to Saul. And Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord. I have carried out the word of the Lord.”
14. Samuel said, “Then what is the sound of this flock of sheep in my ears? And the sound of the cattle which I am hearing?”