⁸Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass, and in it he saw a swarm of bees and some honey. ⁹He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.

¹⁰Now his father went down to see the woman. And there Samson held a feast,^s as was customary for young men. ¹¹When the people saw him, they chose thirty men to be his companions.

¹²“Let me tell you a riddle,^t” Samson said to them. “If you can give me the answer within the seven days of the feast,^u I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.^v ¹³If you can’t tell me the answer, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.”

“Tell us your riddle,” they said. “Let’s hear it.”

¹⁴He replied,

“Out of the eater, something to eat;

out of the strong, something sweet.”^w

For three days they could not give the answer.

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Cross references

sSee Ge 29:22
tSee Nu 12:8; Eze 17:2; 20:49; 24:3; Hos 12:10
u Ge 29:27
vSee Ge 45:22; See 2 Ki 5:5
wver 18