JudgesChapter 15

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¹Some time later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "I'm going into my wife's room." But her father would not let him go in. ²"I was sure you really hated her," her father said. "So I gave her to one of the men who were with you. Isn't her younger sister even prettier? Please take her instead." ³Samson said to them, "This time no one can blame me when I hurt the Philistines." ⁴So Samson went out and caught 300 foxes. He took torches and tied the foxes together in pairs by their tails. Then he tied a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵He lit the torches and let the foxes loose into the Philistines' grain fields. The fire burned up the piles of cut grain and the grain still growing. It also burned up the vineyards and the olive groves. ⁶"Who did this?" the Philistines asked. They were told, "Samson did. He is the son-in-law of the man from Timnah. Samson did it because his wife was given to his friend." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death. ⁷Samson told them, "Since you did this, I won't stop until I get back at you." ⁸He attacked them without mercy and killed many of them. Then he went down and stayed in the cave in the rock of Etam. ⁹Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah. They spread out near the town of Lehi. ¹⁰The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to attack us?" The Philistines answered, "We've come to capture Samson. We want to do to him what he did to us." ¹¹So 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, "Don't you know the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?" He answered, "I only 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, "Promise me that you won't kill me yourselves." ¹³"We won't," they answered. "We won't kill you. We'll just tie you up tight and hand you over to them." So they tied him with two new ropes. Then they led him up from the rock. ¹⁴Samson came to Lehi, and the Philistines came out to meet him, shouting. Then the Spirit of the LORD came on him with great power. The ropes on his arms became like burned threads. They fell off his hands.a ¹⁵He found the jawbone of a donkey that had just died. He reached out and picked it up. With it he killed 1,000 men. ¹⁶Then Samson said,
"With a donkey's jawbone
I have piled them up in heaps.
With a donkey's jawbone
I have killed 1,000 men." ¹⁷When Samson finished speaking, he threw the jawbone away. And he named that place Ramath-lehi.b ¹⁸Samson was very thirsty. He cried out to the LORD, "You have given your servant this great victory. Now must I die of thirst? Must I fall into the hands of these people who aren't circumcised?" ¹⁹So God split open the hollow place at Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength came back, and he felt alive again. That is why he named the spring En-hakkore. It is still in Lehi today.c ²⁰Samson led Israel as judge for 20 years while the Philistines ruled.