Judges 15
1 And it came to pass after some time, in the time of wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, Let me go in to my wife into the chamber; but her father would not suffer him to go in.
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.
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 be thine, I pray thee, instead of her.
“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?”
3 And Samson said to them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them evil.
“This time I can't be blamed for the trouble I'm going to cause the Philistines,” Samson declared.
4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put one torch between two tails in the midst;
He went and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together, two by two.
5 And he set the torches on fire, and let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both shocks and standing corn, as also olive-yards.
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.
6 Then said the Philistines, Who hath done this! And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Thimnite, because he hath taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines went up, and burnt her and her father with fire.
“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.
7 And Samson said unto them, Since ye will do the like of this, I will surely be avenged on you, and after that will I cease.
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!”
8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and tarried in the cleft of the rock 'Etam.
He attacked them violently, killing them, and then left to go and live in a cave at the rock of Etam.
9 And the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lechi.
So the Philistine army came and camped in Judah, drawn up for battle near Lehi.
10 And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.
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.
11 Thereupon went three thousand men of Judah down to the cleft of the rock 'Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? and what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As they did unto me, so have I done unto them.
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.
12 And they said unto him, To bind thee are we come down, to deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not assail me yourselves.
“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.
13 And they said unto him, thus, No; for we will [only] bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand; but we will in no-wise kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.
“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.
14 When he was come unto Lechi, the Philistines shouted against him; but the Spirit of the Lord came suddenly over him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax threads that are burnt with fire, and his bands melted from off his hands.
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.
15 And he found a fresh jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and smote therewith a thousand men.
He grabbed the fresh jawbone of a donkey, using it to kill a thousand Philistines.
16 And Samson said, With a jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw-bone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.
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.”
17 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jaw-bone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lechi.
After Samson had finished his speech, he threw away the jawbone, and he named the place Hill of the Jawbone.
18 And he became very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, and said, Thou hast granted through the hand of thy servant this great deliverance; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
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?”
19 But God clave a hollow place that was at Lechi, and there came forth water out of it; and he drank, and his spirit came again, and he revived; wherefore he called the name thereof 'En-hakkore, which is in Lechi unto this day.
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.
20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.
Samson led Israel as judge for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
