But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (1 Samuel 15:9)
By destroying what was not worth saving anyway, Saul and his men contented themselves that they had obeyed God’s command to “utterly destroy all that they have” (v. 3). At the same time the victorious Israelites saved “all that was good.”