¹²Then Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle. If you solve it during the seven days of the party, I’ll give you 30 linen shirts and 30 changes of clothes. ¹³But if you can’t solve it, you will give me the same things.”

They responded, “Tell us your riddle! Let’s hear it!”

¹⁴So Samson said to them,

“From the eater

came something to eat.

From the strong one

came something sweet.”

For three days they couldn’t solve the riddle. ¹⁵On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Trick your husband into solving the riddle for us. If you don’t, we’ll burn you and your family to death. Did the two of you invite us ⸤just to make us poor⸥?”

¹⁶So Samson’s wife cried on his shoulder. She said, “You hate me! You don’t really love me! You gave my friends a riddle and didn’t tell me the answer.”

Samson replied, “I haven’t even told my father and mother, so why should I tell you?”

¹⁷But she cried on his shoulder for the rest of the seven days of the party. Finally, on the seventh day he told her the answer because she made his life miserable. Then she told her friends the answer to the riddle.

¹⁸So before sundown on the seventh day, the men of the city said to him,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”

Samson replied,

“If you hadn’t used my cow to plow,

you wouldn’t know my riddle now.”

¹⁹When the Lord’s Spirit came over him, he went to Ashkelon and killed 30 men there. He took their clothes and gave them to the men who solved the riddle. He was angry, and he went to his father’s house.

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