Judges 15
1 And it came to pass after a time, in the days of the wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid of the goats. And he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber; but her father would not suffer him to go in.
Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.
2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou didst utterly hate her; therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Let her, I pray thee, be thine instead of her.
“I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”
3 And Samson said to them, This time I am blameless toward the Philistines, though I do them harm.
Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in doing harm to the Philistines.”
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between the two tails.
Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. And he took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.
5 And he set the torches on fire, and let [them] run into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, and the olive gardens.
Then he lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the piles of grain and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
6 And the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.
“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
7 And Samson said to them, If ye act thus, for a certainty I will avenge myself on you, and then I will cease.
And Samson told them, “Because you have done this, I will not rest until I have taken vengeance upon you.”
8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the cliff Etam.
And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.
9 And the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
Then the Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and deployed themselves near the town of Lehi.
10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.
“Why have you attacked us?” said the men of Judah. The Philistines replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he has done to us.”
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the cliff Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? And what is this that thou hast done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them.
In response, three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Do you not realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?” “I have done to them what they did to me,” he replied.
12 And they said to him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may give thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that ye will not fall on me yourselves.
But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson replied, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”
13 And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand; but we certainly shall not put thee to death. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the cliff.
“No,” they answered, “we will not kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and the cords that were on his arms became as threads of flax that are burned with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.
When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.
15 And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew with it a thousand men.
He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.
16 And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, a heap, two heaps, With the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey I have piled them into heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.”
17 And it came to pass when he had ended speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-Lehi.
And when Samson had finished speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.
18 And he was very thirsty, and called on Jehovah, and said, Thou hast given by the hand of thy servant this great deliverance, and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
19 And God clave the hallow rock which was in Lehi, and water came out of it. And he drank, and his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.
So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, and it remains in Lehi to this day.
20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
And Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
