Judges 14:12–19

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 13}If 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.

¹⁵On the fourth^a day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax^x your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death.^y Did you invite us here to steal our property?”

¹⁶Then Samson’s wife threw herself on him, sobbing, “You hate me! You don’t really love me.^z You’ve given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.”

“I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother,” he replied, “so why should I explain it to you?” ¹⁷She cried the whole seven days^a of the feast. So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people.

¹⁸Before sunset on the seventh day the men of the town said to him,

“What is sweeter than honey?

What is stronger than a lion?”^b

Samson said to them,

“If you had not plowed with my heifer,

you would not have solved my riddle.”

¹⁹Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him.^c He went down to Ashkelon,^d struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger,^e he returned to his father’s home.