15Later on, Samson went to visit his wife. He took a young goat with him. He went at the time the wheat was being gathered. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t let him go in.

²Her father said, “I was sure you really hated her. So I gave her to your friend. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful? Take her instead.”

³Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines. I’m going to hurt them badly.”

⁴So he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied them in pairs by their tails. Then he tied a torch to each pair of tails. ⁵He lit the torches. He let the foxes loose in the fields of grain that belonged to the Philistines. He burned up the grain that had been cut and stacked. He burned up the grain that was still growing. He also burned up the vineyards and olive trees.

⁶The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They were told, “Samson did. He’s the son-in-law of the man from Timnah. Samson did it because his wife was given to his friend.”

So the Philistines went up and burned the woman and her father to death.

⁷Samson said to them, “Is that how you act? Then I won’t stop until I pay you back.” ⁸He struck them down with heavy blows. He killed many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave. It was in the rock of Etam.

⁹The Philistines went up and camped in Judah. They spread out near Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight against us?”

“We’ve come to take Samson as our prisoner,” they answered. “We want to do to him what he did to us.”

¹¹Then 3,000 men from Judah went to get Samson. They went down to the cave that was in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines are ruling over us? What have you done to us?”

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

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