Judges 15:11–20

¹¹Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that ^rthe Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.” ¹²And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two ^snew ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. ^tThen the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. ¹⁵And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, ^uand with it he struck 1,000 men. ¹⁶And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,

heaps upon heaps,

with the jawbone of a donkey

have I struck down a thousand men.”

¹⁷As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place ^vwas called Ramath-lehi.¹

¹⁸And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, ^w“You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹And God split open the hollow place that is ^vat Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, ^xhis spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore;² it is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰And he judged Israel ^yin the days of the Philistines twenty years.