Repent, then, and turn to God, so that he will forgive your sins. If you do,

He must remain in heaven until the time comes for all things to be made new, as God announced through his holy prophets of long ago.

But now God's way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it.

All of this took about 450 years. "After this he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel.

In the meantime the boy Samuel continued to serve the LORD, wearing a sacred linen apron.

In those days, when the boy Samuel was serving the LORD under the direction of Eli, there were very few messages from the LORD, and visions from him were quite rare.

So all the people of Israel, from one end of the country to the other, knew that Samuel was indeed a prophet of the LORD.

Moses and Aaron were his priests, and Samuel was one who prayed to him; they called to the LORD, and he answered them.

Then the LORD said to me, "Even if Moses and Samuel were standing here pleading with me, I would not show these people any mercy. Make them go away; make them get out of my sight.