Judges 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.
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 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.”
“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 Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.”
“This time I can't be blamed for the trouble I'm going to cause the Philistines,” Samson declared.
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.
He went and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together, two by two.
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.
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 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.
“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 Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will 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 He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock.
He attacked them violently, killing them, and then left to go and live in a cave at the rock of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
So the Philistine army came and camped in Judah, drawn up for battle near 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.”
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 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.”
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 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.”
“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 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.
“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 came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then Yahweh’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.
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 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it.
He grabbed the fresh jawbone of a donkey, using it to kill a thousand Philistines.
16 Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck 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 When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.
After Samson had finished his speech, he threw away the jawbone, and he named the place Hill of the Jawbone.
18 He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh 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?”
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 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.
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 He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
Samson led Israel as judge for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
