Judges 15:1–11

15Some time later Samson went to visit his wife during the wheat harvest and took her a young goat. He said to her father, “I want to go to my wife’s room.”

But he wouldn’t let him go in. ²He said to Samson, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your friend. But her younger sister is prettier, anyway. You can have her, instead.”

³Samson said, “This time I’m not going to be responsible for what I do to the Philistines!” ⁴So he went and caught 300 foxes. Two by two, he tied their tails together and put torches in the knots. ⁵Then he set fire to the torches and turned the foxes loose in the Philistine cornfields. In this way he burnt up not only the corn that had been harvested but also the corn that was still in the fields, and the olive orchards as well. ⁶When the Philistines asked who had done this, they learnt that Samson had done it because his father-in-law, a man from Timnah, had given Samson’s wife to a friend of Samson’s. So the Philistines went and burnt the woman to death and burnt down her father’s house.^e

⁷Samson told them, “So this is how you act! I swear that I won’t stop until I pay you back!” ⁸He attacked them fiercely and killed many of them. Then he went and stayed in the cave in the cliff at Etam.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

⁹The Philistines came and made camp in Judah, and attacked the town of Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah asked them, “Why are you attacking us?”

They answered, “We came to take Samson prisoner and to treat him as he treated us.” ¹¹So 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave in the cliff at Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are our rulers? What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I did to them just what they did to me.”