In chapter 13, the following themes are expressed:
The basic structure of Samuel’s speech in chapter 13 includes five themes, and he repeats these points several times in no specific order. Three times he reiterated that the Lord would “visit them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence” (13:9) and would “visit them in my fierce anger” and shall “visit your destruction” (13:10). He uses the word “Wo” seven times in this chapter (13:11, 12, 12, 14, 15, 16, 24; and twice more in chapter 15). The word “destroy/destruction” appears nine times in chapter 13 alone. The “anger” of the Lord appears five times, and only, in chapter 13 (verses 10, 11, 30, 37, 39). Taken altogether, the large number of his expressions of “wo,” of “famine and pestilence” (13:9), of cursings (13:17, 18, 19, 23, 25), and destruction are punctuated by three times as many succinct expressions involving “repent, repentance, repented, repenteth” (twenty-seven occurrences, running throughout his speech), such as, “except they repent” (13:8), “except ye repent, saith the Lord” (13:10), and “but if ye will repent and return unto the Lord your God I will turn away mine anger, saith the Lord” (13:11). Several other words appear in similarly high concentrations here.
Toward the end of chapter 13, perhaps when it was clear that the people as a whole were not accepting his warnings, Samuel was prompted to say, “But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure” (13:38). However, he still ended this first section of his speech on a note of hope, “O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words! And I pray that the anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be saved” (13:39).