3. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don’t spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
4. Saul summoned the people, and counted them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
5. Saul came to the city of Amalek, and set 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. Saul struck the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, that is before 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, of the cattle, and of the fat calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to utterly destroy them; but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
10. Then the Lord’s word came to Samuel, saying,
11. “It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to the Lord all night.
12. Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and Samuel was told, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned, and passed on, and went down to Gilgal.”
13. Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, “You are blessed by the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”
14. Samuel said, “Then what does this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the cattle which I hear mean?”