“So now, when I return to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us – his very life is bound up in his son’s life.

“So now, please let your servant remain as my lord’s slave instead of the boy. As for the boy, let him go back with his brothers.

Now the boy Samuel was growing up and finding favor both with the Lord and with people.

(Now the servant did not understand any of this. Only Jonathan and David knew what was going on.)

So Jeroboam’s wife got up and went back to Tirzah. As she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died.

So he said to his servants, “You two stay here with the donkey while the boy and I go up there. We will worship and then return to you.”

Now the young woman was very beautiful. She was a virgin; no man had ever had sexual relations with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jug, and came back up.

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I couldn’t bear to see my father’s pain.”

Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah of flour, and a container of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young.

Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah. But the boy was serving the Lord under the supervision of Eli the priest.

Now the boy Samuel continued serving the Lord under Eli’s supervision. Word from the Lord was rare in those days; revelatory visions were infrequent.