Judges 15
1 Some time later when the wheat was being harvested, Samson went to pay his wife a visit, taking with him a young goat as a present. “I want to go to my wife in her bedroom,” he said when he arrived, but her father would not let him go in.
But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a young goat; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the room." But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.
2 “I thought you must totally hate her, so I gave her to your best man,” he told Samson. “But her younger sister is even more attractive—why don't you marry her instead?”
Her father said, "I most certainly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Please take her, instead."
3 “This time I can't be blamed for the trouble I'm going to cause the Philistines,” Samson declared.
Samson said to him, "This time I will be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I harm them."
4 He went and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together, two by two.
Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between every two tails.
5 He attached a torch to each of the tied tails and set them on fire. Then he let them loose in the grain fields of the Philistines, setting fire to all the grain, harvested and unharvested, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
And when he had set fire to the torches, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
6 “Who did this?” the Philistines asked. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah,” they were told. “That man gave Samson's wife to Samson's best man.” So the Philistines went and burned her and her father to death.
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 burnt her and her father's house with fire.
7 Samson told them, “If this is the way you're going to act, then I won't stop until I take my revenge on you!”
Samson said to them, "Because you did this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease."
8 He attacked them violently, killing them, and then left to go and live in a cave at the rock of Etam.
He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.
9 So the Philistine army came and camped in Judah, drawn up for battle near Lehi.
Then the Philistines went up, and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi.
10 The people of Judah asked, “Why have you invaded us?” “We've come to capture Samson, to do to him what he's done to us!” they replied.
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 Three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam and asked Samson, “Don't you understand that the Philistines rule over us? What do you think you're doing to us?” “I only did what they did to me,” he replied.
Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not 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 have I done to them."
12 “Well, we've come to take you prisoner and hand you over to the Philistines,” they told him. “Just swear to me that you're not going to kill me yourselves,” Samson answered.
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 fall on me yourselves."
13 “No, we won't,” they assured him. “We'll only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. We certainly aren't going to kill you!” They tied him using two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
They spoke to him, saying, "No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand; but surely we will not kill you." They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When Samson got close to Lehi, the Philistines ran towards him, shouting at him. But the Spirit of the Lord swept over him, and the ropes tying his arms together became as weak as burnt flax, and his hands broke free.
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.
15 He grabbed the fresh jawbone of a donkey, using it to kill a thousand Philistines.
And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and reached down and took it, and struck a thousand men with it.
16 Then Samson declared, “With a donkey's jawbone I have piled the dead into heaps. With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”
Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men."
17 After Samson had finished his speech, he threw away the jawbone, and he named the place Hill of the Jawbone.
It happened, when he had finished speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.
18 He was now extremely thirsty, and he Samson called out to the Lord, saying, “You have achieved this amazing victory through your servant, but now do I have to die of thirst and be captured by the heathen?”
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 for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"
19 So God split open a rock seam in Lehi, and water came out of it. Samson drank and his strength returned—he felt much better. That's why he named it the Spring of the Caller, and it's still there in Lehi to this very day.
And God split the hollow place that is at 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 Samson led Israel as judge for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
He judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
