Samson’s Marriage

¹One day Samson went down to Timnah, where he saw a young Philistine woman.

²So he returned and told his father and mother, “I have seen a daughter of the Philistines in Timnah. Now get her for me as a wife.”

³But his father and mother replied, “Can’t you find a young woman among your relatives or among any of our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?”But Samson told his father, “Get her for me, for she is pleasing to my eyes.”

⁴(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.)

⁵Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Suddenly a young lion came roaring at him,

⁶and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

⁷Then Samson continued on his way down and spoke to the woman, because she was pleasing to his eyes.

Samson’s Riddle

⁸When Samson returned later to take her, he left the road to see the lion’s carcass, and in it was a swarm of bees, along with their honey.

⁹So he scooped some honey into his hands and ate it as he went along. And when he returned to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.

¹⁰Then his father went to visit the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, as was customary for the bridegroom.

¹¹And when the Philistines saw him,they selected thirty men to accompany him.

¹²“Let me tell you a riddle,” Samson said to them. “If you can solve it for me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.

¹³But if you cannot solve it, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.”“Tell us your riddle,” they replied. “Let us hear it.”

¹⁴So he said to them:“Out of the eater came something to eat,and out of the strong came something sweet.”For three days they were unable to explain the riddle.

¹⁵So on the fourthday they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s household to death. Did you invite us here to rob us?”

¹⁶Then Samson’s wife came to him, weeping, and said, “You hate me! You do not really love me! You have posed to my people a riddle, but have not explained it to me.”“Look,” he said, “I have not even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?”

¹⁷She wept the whole seven days of the feast, and finally on the seventh day, because she had pressed him so much, he told her the answer. And in turn she explained the riddle to her people.

¹⁸Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the city said to Samson:“What is sweeter than honey?And what is stronger than a lion?”So he 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 mightily upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave their clothes to those who had solved the riddle. And burning with anger, Samson returned to his father’s house,

²⁰and his wife was given to one of the men who had accompanied him.

Samson Escapes Gaza

¹One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to spend the night with her.

²When the Gazites heard that Samson was there, they surrounded that place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They were quiet throughout the night, saying, “Let us wait until dawn; then we will kill him.”

³But Samson lay there only until midnight, when he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and both gateposts, and pulled them out, bar and all. Then he put them on his shoulders and took them to the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron.

Samson and Delilah

⁴Some time later, Samson fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.

⁵The lords of the Philistines went to her and said, “Entice him and find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him to tie him up and subdue him. Then each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”

⁶So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me the source of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.”

⁷Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become as weak as any other man.”

⁸So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them.

⁹While the men were hidden in her room, she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”But he snapped the bowstrings like a strand of yarn seared by a flame. So the source of his strength remained unknown.

¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and lied to me! Now please tell me how you can be tied up.”

¹¹He replied, “If they tie me up with new ropes that have never been used, I will become as weak as any other man.”

¹²So Delilah took new ropes, tied him up with them, and called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”But while the men were hidden in her room, he snapped the ropes off his arms like they were threads.

¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and lied to me all along! Tell me how you can be tied up.”He told her, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the web of a loom and tighten it with a pin, I will become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁴So while he slept, Delilah took the seven braids of his hair and wove them into the web.Then she tightened it with a pin and called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin with the loom and the web.

Delilah Learns the Secret

¹⁵“How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she asked, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and failed to reveal to me the source of your great strength!”

¹⁶Finally, after she had pressed him daily with her words and pleaded until he was sick to death,

¹⁷Samson told her all that was in his heart: “My hair has never been cut, because I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸When Delilah realized that he had revealed to her all that was in his heart, she sent this message to the lords of the Philistines: “Come up once more, for he has revealed to me all that is in his heart.”Then the lords of the Philistines came to her, bringing the money in their hands.

¹⁹And having lulled him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his head. In this way she began to subdue him,and his strength left him.

²⁰Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.

²¹Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.

²²However, the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved.

Samson’s Vengeance and Death

²³Now the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands.”

²⁴And when the people saw him, they praised their god, saying:“Our god has delivered into our handsour enemy who destroyed our landand multiplied our dead.”

²⁵And while their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison to entertain them. And they stationed him between the pillars.

²⁶Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.”

²⁷Now the temple was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.

²⁸Then Samson called out to the LORD: “O Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, O God, just once more, so that with one vengeful blow I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”

²⁹And Samson reached out for the two central pillars supporting the temple. Bracing himself against them with his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on the other,

³⁰Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.”Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people in it. So in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life.

³¹Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.

Samson’s Revenge

¹Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

²“I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

³Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in doing harm to the Philistines.”

⁴Then Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. And he took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.

⁵Then he lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, burning up the piles of grain and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded.“It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.”So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

⁷And Samson told them, “Because you have done this, I will not rest until I have taken vengeance upon you.”

⁸And he struck them ruthlesslywith a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and deployed themselves near the town of Lehi.

¹⁰“Why have you attacked us?” said the men of Judah.The Philistines replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he has done to us.”

¹¹In response, three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Do you not realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?”“I have done to them what they did to me,” he replied.

¹²But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.”Samson replied, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”

¹³“No,” they answered, “we will not kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock.

¹⁴When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.

¹⁵He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.

¹⁶Then Samson said:“With the jawbone of a donkeyI have piled them into heaps.With the jawbone of a donkeyI have slain a thousand men.”

¹⁷And when Samson had finished speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

¹⁹So God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned, and he was revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore,and it remains in Lehi to this day.

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

I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

¹Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;listen to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in parables;I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

³that we have heard and knownand our fathers have relayed to us.

⁴We will not hide them from their childrenbut will declare to the next generationthe praises of the LORD and His mightand the wonders He has performed.

⁵For He established a testimony in Jacoband appointed a law in Israel,which He commanded our fathersto teach to their children,

⁶that the coming generation would know them—even children yet to be born—to arise and tell their own children

⁷that they should put their confidence in God,not forgetting His works,but keeping His commandments.

⁸Then they will not be like their fathers,a stubborn and rebellious generation,whose heart was not loyal,whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹The archers of Ephraimturned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰They failed to keep God’s covenantand refused to live by His law.

¹¹They forgot what He had done,the wonders He had shown them.

¹²He worked wonders before their fathersin the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through;He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹⁴He led them with a cloud by dayand with a light of fire all night.

¹⁵He split the rocks in the wildernessand gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

¹⁶He brought streams from the stoneand made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷But they continued to sin against Him,rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

¹⁸They willfully tested Godby demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹They spoke against God, saying,“Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰When He struck the rock, water gushed outand torrents raged.But can He also give breador supply His people with meat?”

²¹Therefore the LORD heardand was filled with wrath;so a fire was kindled against Jacob,and His anger flared against Israel,

²²because they did not believe Godor rely on His salvation.

²³Yet He commanded the clouds aboveand opened the doors of the heavens.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat;He gave them grain from heaven.

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels;He sent them food in abundance.

²⁶He stirred the east wind from the heavensand drove the south wind by His might.

²⁷He rained meat on them like dust,and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

²⁸He felled them in the midst of their camp,all around their dwellings.

²⁹So they ate and were well filled,for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰Yet before they had filled their desire,with the food still in their mouths,

³¹God’s anger flared against them,and He put to death their strongestand subdued the young men of Israel.

³²In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

³³So He ended their days in futility,and their years in sudden terror.

³⁴When He slew them, they would seek Him;they repented and searched for God.

³⁵And they remembered that God was their Rock,that God Most Highwas their Redeemer.

³⁶But they deceived Him with their mouths,and lied to Him with their tongues.

³⁷Their hearts were disloyal to Him,and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

³⁸And yet He was compassionate;He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them.He often restrained His angerand did not unleash His full wrath.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh,a passing breeze that does not return.

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wildernessand grieved Him in the desert!

⁴¹Again and again they tested Godand provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

⁴³when He performed His signs in Egyptand His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴He turned their rivers to blood,and from their streams they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,and frogs that devastated them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to the grasshopper,the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He killed their vines with hailstonesand their sycamore-figs with sleet.

⁴⁸He abandoned their cattle to the hailand their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹He unleashed His fury against them,wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰He cleared a path for His anger;He did not spare them from deathbut delivered their lives to the plague.

⁵¹He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,the virility in the tents of Ham.

⁵²He led out His people like sheepand guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

⁵³He led them safely, so they did not fear,but the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to His holy land,to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

⁵⁵He drove out nations before themand apportioned their inheritance;He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶But they tested and disobeyed God Most High,for they did not keep His decrees.

⁵⁷They turned back and were faithless like their fathers,twisted like a faulty bow.

⁵⁸They enraged Him with their high placesand provoked His jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹On hearing it, God was furiousand rejected Israel completely.

⁶⁰He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,the tent He had pitched among men.

⁶¹He delivered His strength to captivity,and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

⁶²He surrendered His people to the swordbecause He was enraged by His heritage.

⁶³Fire consumed His young men,and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

⁶⁴His priests fell by the sword,but their widows could not lament.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

⁶⁶He beat back His foes;He put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷He rejected the tent of Josephand refused the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸But He chose the tribe of Judah,Mount Zion, which He loved.

⁶⁹He built His sanctuary like the heights,like the earth He has established forever.

⁷⁰He chose David His servantand took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹from tending the ewes He brought himto be shepherd of His people Jacob,of Israel His inheritance.

⁷²So David shepherded them with integrity of heartand guided them with skillful hands.