15
1 But
after a while,
in the time
of wheat harvest,
Samson visited
his wife with a
young goat.
He said, “I will
go in to
my wife’s room.”
But her father wouldn’t
allow him to
go in.
2 Her father
said, “I most
certainly thought that
you utterly hated
her; therefore I
gave her to
your companion. Isn’t
her younger sister
more beautiful
than she? Please,
take her instead.”
3 Samson said
to them, “This
time I will
be blameless in
the case of
the Philistines
when I harm
them.”
4 Samson
went and caught
three hundred
foxes, and took
torches, and
turned tail to
tail, and put
a torch in
the middle between
every two tails.
5 When
he had set
the torches
on fire, he let
them go into
the standing grain
of the Philistines,
and burned up both
the shocks and
the standing grain,
and also the
olive groves.
6 Then
the Philistines said, “Who
has done this?”
They said, “Samson,
the son-in-law of
the Timnite,
because he has
taken his wife and
given her to
his companion.”
The Philistines
came up, and
burned her and
her father with fire.
7 Samson said
to them, “If
you behave like
this, surely I
will take revenge
on you, and
after that I
will cease.”
8 He
struck them hip
and thigh with
a great slaughter;
and he went
down and lived
in the cave in
Etam’s rock.
9 Then
the Philistines
went up, encamped
in Judah, and
spread themselves in
Lehi.
10 The
men of Judah said,
“Why have you
come up against
us?”
They said, “We
have come up
to bind Samson, to
do to him
as he has
done to us.”
11 Then
three thousand men
of Judah went
down to the cave
in Etam’s rock,
and said to
Samson, “Don’t you
know that the
Philistines are
rulers over us?
What then is
this that you
have done to
us?”
He said to
them, “As they
did to me,
so I have
done to them.”
12 They said
to him, “We
have come down
to bind you, that
we may deliver
you into the
hand of the
Philistines.”
Samson said to
them, “Swear to
me that you
will not attack
me yourselves.”
13 They spoke
to him, saying, “No, but we will bind
you securely and
deliver you into
their hands; but
surely we will
not kill you.”
They bound him
with two new
ropes, and brought
him up from
the rock.
14 When
he came to
Lehi, the
Philistines shouted
as they met
him. Then the
LORD’s Spirit came
mightily on him,
and the ropes
that were on
his arms became
as flax that
was burned
with fire; and his
bands dropped from
off his hands.
15 He
found a fresh
jawbone of a
donkey, put out
his hand, took
it, and struck
a thousand men
with it.
16 Samson said,
“With the jawbone
of a donkey,
heaps on heaps;
with the jawbone
of a donkey I have
struck a thousand men.”
17 When
he had finished
speaking, he threw
the jawbone out
of his hand;
and that place
was called
Ramath Lehi.
18 He
was very thirsty,
and called on
the LORD and
said, “You have
given this great
deliverance by the
hand of your
servant; and now
shall I die
of thirst, and
fall into the
hands of the
uncircumcised?”
19 But God
split the hollow
place that is
in Lehi, and
water came out
of it. When
he had drunk,
his spirit came
again, and he
revived. Therefore
its name was
called En Hakkore, which
is in Lehi,
to this day.
20 He
judged Israel
twenty years in
the days of
the Philistines.