Judges 15:7–17

⁷Samson said to them, “Since you’ve acted like this, I swear that I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you.” ⁸He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock^s of Etam.^t

⁹The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.^{u 10}The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?”

“We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us?^v What have you done to us?”

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

¹²They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Samson said, “Swear to me^w that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³“Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes^x and led him up from the rock. ¹⁴As he approached Lehi,^y the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him.^z The ropes on his arms became like charred flax,^a and the bindings dropped from his hands. ¹⁵Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.^b

¹⁶Then Samson said,

“With a donkey’s jawbone

I have made donkeys of them.^ac

With a donkey’s jawbone

I have killed a thousand men.”

¹⁷When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.^bd