Judges 15:11–20

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.