1 The Kiriath-Jearim mob took God’s special box back to their country, to the house of a man called Abinadab. That house stood on the top of a hill. And they picked his son Eleazar to look after that box.* 2 Samuel 6:2-4; 1 Chronicles 13:5-7 2 God’s special box stood there at that house for 20 years.

All that time the Israel mob felt sad. They thought God left them, so they kept on asking him to help them. 3 Then Samuel asked them, “Is it true that you mob want to turn back to God? Well, you have to do this. Throw away all those statues made of wood and stone. Throw away those statues of women called Astarti. Those things do not belong to us Israel mob. They are from another place. You mob have to show respect only to God. Turn back to him. Give yourselves only to him. If you do that, he will save you from the Philistia mob.” 4 So the Israel mob listened to him and threw away all those things, those statues like men called Baal and those other statues like women called Astarti. And they turned back to God and showed respect only to him.

5 Then Samuel told them all, “Send messengers to every place. I want all the Israel mob to meet together at that place called Mizpah. Then I will pray to God for everybody there.”

6 So they all met together at Mizpah. They got some water from a spring and poured it on the ground. That was their way to tell God that they felt shamed. They were sorry that they showed respect to those statues. On that day they didn’t eat any food as they prayed to him. They prayed like this, “Our God, we did wrong things. We didn’t follow your way.” That’s the way Samuel led the people to go the right way.

7 After the bosses from Philistia heard that the Israel mob came together at Mizpah, they took their soldiers to that place. The Israel mob heard they were coming, and they got frightened. 8 So they said to Samuel, “Pray to God for us. Keep on praying, don’t stop. Ask him to save us from the Philistia mob.” 9 Then Samuel got a young sheep, and he burned all of it to give it to God. He kept on praying for the Israel mob, and God took notice of him.

10 God heard Samuel’s prayer. While he burned the young sheep, the Philistia mob came close, ready to attack the Israel mob. But suddenly God made a really loud noise, and it sounded like thunder. The Philistia mob got really frightened and confused, so the Israel mob easily beat them. 11 They chased them from Mizpah almost as far as a place called Beth-Car, and they killed lots of people dead along the way. 12-13 The Philistia mob ran away and went home. Then Samuel got a big stone, and stood it up half-way between 2 places, Mizpah and Shen, so that everybody will remember the things that happened. And he said, “God was helping us.” So he called the stone Ebenezer. That name means stone that belongs to the one that helps us. The Philistia mob sat quiet for a long time. They didn’t come back to the Israel mob’s country.

So God saved them from the Philistia mob for a long time, until Samuel became an old man.