Judges 15–16

Samson Troubles the Philistines

15At the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, taking a young goat with him. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room,” but her father would not let him go in.

²He said to Samson, “I thought you really hated your wife, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more beautiful. Take her instead.”

³But Samson said to them, “This time no one will blame me for hurting you Philistines!” ⁴So Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took two foxes at a time, tied their tails together, and then tied a torch to the tails of each pair of foxes. ⁵After he lit the torches, he let the foxes loose in the grainfields of the Philistines so that he burned up their standing grain, the piles of grain, their vineyards, and their olive trees.

⁶The Philistines asked, “Who did this?”

Someone told them, “Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah, did because his father-in-law gave his wife to his best man.”

So the Philistines burned Samson’s wife and her father to death. ⁷Then Samson said to the Philistines, “Since you did this, I won’t stop until I pay you back!” ⁸Samson attacked the Philistines and killed many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹The Philistines went up and camped in the land of Judah, near a place named Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah asked them, “Why have you come here to fight us?”

They answered, “We have come to make Samson our prisoner, to pay him back for what he did to our people.”

¹¹Then three thousand men of Judah went to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “What have you done to us? Don’t you know that the Philistines rule over us?”

Samson answered, “I only paid them back for what they did to me.”

¹²Then they said to him, “We have come to tie you up and to hand you over to the Philistines.”

Samson said to them, “Promise me you will not hurt me yourselves.”

¹³The men from Judah said, “We agree. We will just tie you up and give you to the Philistines. We will not kill you.” So they tied Samson with two new ropes and led him up from the cave in the rock. ¹⁴When Samson came to the place named Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting for joy. Then the Spirit of the Lord entered Samson and gave him great power. The ropes on him weakened like burned strings and fell off his hands! ¹⁵Samson found the jawbone of a dead donkey, took it, and killed a thousand men with it!

¹⁶Then Samson said,

“With a donkey’s jawbone

I made donkeys out of them.

With a donkey’s jawbone

I killed a thousand men!”

¹⁷When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone. So that place was named Ramath Lehi. ⁿ

¹⁸Samson was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord, “You gave me, your servant, this great victory. Do I have to die of thirst now? Do I have to be captured by people who are not circumcised?” ¹⁹Then God opened up a hole in the ground at Lehi, and water came out. When Samson drank, he felt better; he felt strong again. So he named that spring Caller’s Spring, which is still in Lehi.

²⁰Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

Samson Goes to the City of Gaza

16One day Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there. He went in to spend the night with her. ²When the people of Gaza heard, “Samson has come here!” they surrounded the place and waited for him near the city gate all night. They whispered to each other, “When dawn comes, we will kill Samson!”

³But Samson only stayed with the prostitute until midnight. Then he got up and took hold of the doors and the two posts of the city gate and tore them loose, along with the bar. He put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces the city of Hebron.

Samson and Delilah

⁴After this, Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Valley of Sorek. ⁵The Philistine rulers went to Delilah and said, “Find out what makes Samson so strong. Trick him into telling you how we can overpower him and capture him and tie him up. If you do this, each one of us will give you twenty-eight pounds of silver.”

⁶So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me why you are so strong. How can someone tie you up and capture you?”

⁷Samson answered, “Someone would have to tie me up with seven new bowstrings that have not been dried. Then I would be as weak as any other man.”

⁸The Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied Samson with them. ⁹Some men were hiding in another room. Delilah said to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But Samson broke the bowstrings like pieces of burned string. So the Philistines did not find out the secret of Samson’s strength.

¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, “You made a fool of me. You lied to me. Now tell me how someone can tie you up.”

¹¹Samson said, “They would have to tie me with new ropes that have not been used before. Then I would become as weak as any other man.”

¹²So Delilah took new ropes and tied Samson. Some men were hiding in another room. She called out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” But he broke the ropes as easily as if they were threads.

¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, “Again you have made a fool of me. You lied to me. Tell me how someone can tie you up.”

He said, “Using the loom, ⁿ weave the seven braids of my hair into the cloth, and tighten it with a pin. Then I will be as weak as any other man.”

While Samson slept, Delilah wove the seven braids of his hair into the cloth. ¹⁴Then she fastened it with a pin.

Again she said to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” Samson woke up and pulled out the pin and the loom with the cloth.

¹⁵Then Delilah said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t even trust me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me. You haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” ¹⁶She kept bothering Samson about his secret day after day until he felt he was going to die!

¹⁷So he told her everything. He said, “I have never had my hair cut, because I have been set apart to God as a Nazirite since I was born. If someone shaved my head, I would lose my strength and be as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸When Delilah saw that he had told her everything sincerely, she sent a message to the Philistine rulers. She said, “Come back one more time, because he has told me everything.” So the Philistine rulers came back to Delilah and brought the silver with them. ¹⁹Delilah got Samson to sleep, lying in her lap. Then she called in a man to shave off the seven braids of Samson’s hair. In this way she began to make him weak, and his strength left him.

²⁰Then she said, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”

He woke up and thought, “I’ll leave as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

²¹Then the Philistines captured Samson and tore out his eyes. They took him down to Gaza, where they put bronze chains on him and made him grind grain in the prison. ²²But his hair began to grow again.

Samson Dies

²³The Philistine rulers gathered to celebrate and to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They said, “Our god has handed Samson our enemy over to us.” ²⁴When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying,

“This man destroyed our country.

He killed many of us!

But our god handed over

our enemy to us.”

²⁵While the people were enjoying the celebration, they said, “Bring Samson out to perform for us.” So they brought Samson from the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars. ²⁶Samson said to the servant holding his hand, “Let me feel the pillars that hold up the temple so I can lean against them.” ²⁷Now the temple was full of men and women. All the Philistine rulers were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof ⁿ watching Samson perform. ²⁸Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “Lord God, remember me. God, please give me strength one more time so I can pay these Philistines back for putting out my two eyes!” ²⁹Then Samson turned to the two center pillars that supported the whole temple. He braced himself between the two pillars, with his right hand on one and his left hand on the other. ³⁰Samson said, “Let me die with these Philistines!” Then he pushed as hard as he could, causing the temple to fall on the rulers and all the people in it. So Samson killed more of the Philistines when he died than when he was alive.

³¹Samson’s brothers and his whole family went down to get his body. They brought him back and buried him in the tomb of Manoah, his father, between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol. Samson was a judge for the people of Israel for twenty years.