Judges 15

Samson’s Vengeance on the Philistines

15Later on, at the time of wheat harvest,^g Samson^h took a young goatⁱ and went to visit his wife. He said, “I’m going to my wife’s room.”^j But her father would not let him go in.

²“I was so sure you hated her,” he said, “that I gave her to your companion.^k Isn’t her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead.”

³Samson said to them, “This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them.” ⁴So he went out and caught three hundred foxes^l and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch^m to every pair of tails, ⁵lit the torchesⁿ and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks^o and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶When the Philistines asked, “Who did this?” they were told, “Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because his wife was given to his companion.^p”

So the Philistines went up and burned her^q and her father to death.^{r 7}Samson 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

¹⁸Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord,^e “You have given your servant this great victory.^f Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived.^g So the spring^h was called En Hakkore,^c and it is still there in Lehi.

²⁰Samson led^d Israel for twenty yearsⁱ in the days of the Philistines.