¹¹Wherefore three thousand men of Juda went down to the cave of the rock Etam, and said to Samson: Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? Why wouldst thou do thus? And he said to them: As they did to me, so have I done to them.

¹²And they said to him: We are come to bind thee, and to deliver thee into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them: Swear to me, and promise me that you will not kill me.

¹³They said: We will not kill thee: but we will deliver thee up bound. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him from the rock Etam.

¹⁴Now when he was come to the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines shouting went to meet him, the Spirit of the Lord came strongly upon him: and as flax is wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed.

¹⁵And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass, which lay there, catching it up, he slew therewith a thousand men.

¹⁶And he said: With the jawbone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt of asses, I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men.

¹⁷And when he had ended these words, singing, he threw the jawbone out of his hand, and called the name of that place Ramathlechi, which is interpreted the lifting up of the jawbone.

¹⁸And being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord, and said: Thou hast given this very great deliverance and victory into the hand of thy servant: and behold I die for thirst, and shall fall into the hands of the uncircumcised.

¹⁹Then the Lord opened a great tooth in the jaw of the ass and waters issued out of it. And when he had drunk them, he refreshed his spirit, and recovered his strength. Therefore the name of that place was called The Spring of him that invoked from the jawbone, until this present day.

²⁰And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines, twenty years.

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