Samson Defeats the Philistines

1But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not allow him to go in.   young goat

2And her father said, I verily thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray you, instead of her.   truly

3And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.   harm

4And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.   torches

5And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.

6Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.

7And Samson said to them, Though you^p have done this, yet will I be avenged of you^p, and after that I will cease.

8And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelled in the top of the rock Etam.   cleft

9Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.   camped

10And the men of Judah said, Why are you^p come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.

11Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the rock Etam, and said to Samson, Know you not that the Philistines are rulers over us? what is this that you have done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them.

12And they said to him, We are come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me, that you^p will not fall upon me yourselves^p.

13And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.

14And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burned with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

15And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

16And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

17And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi.   The High Place of the Jawbone

18And he was sore thirsty, and called on the Lord, and said, You have given this great deliverance into the hand of Your servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?   very

19But God split a hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water from it; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.   Spring of the One Calling

20And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.