1 But it came to pass after a while, in the time of wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. 2 And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. 3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. 4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took fire-brands, and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand in the midst between two tails. 5 And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. 6 Then the Philistines said, Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. 7 And Samson said to them, Though ye have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. 8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. 9 Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, Why have ye come up against us? And they answered, We have come to bind Samson, to do to him as he hath done to us. 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us? 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. 12 And they said to him, We have come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves. 13 And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock. 14 And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his the hands. 15 And he found a fresh jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men with it. 16 And Samson said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain 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-lehi. 18 And he was very thirsty, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die by thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? 19 But God cleaved a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water out of it; and when he had drank, his spirit came again, and he revived. Wherefore he called the name of it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines, twenty years. | |