Hannah’s Prayer of Praise

2 Then Hannah prayed:

¹¹ Then Elkanah returned home to Ramah without Samuel. And the boy served the Lord by assisting Eli the priest.

Eli’s Wicked Sons

¹² Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the Lord ¹³ or for their duties as priests. Whenever anyone offered a sacrifice, Eli’s sons would send over a servant with a three-pronged fork. While the meat of the sacrificed animal was still boiling, ¹⁴ the servant would stick the fork into the pot and demand that whatever it brought up be given to Eli’s sons. All the Israelites who came to worship at Shiloh were treated this way. ¹⁵ Sometimes the servant would come even before the animal’s fat had been burned on the altar. He would demand raw meat before it had been boiled so that it could be used for roasting.

¹⁶ The man offering the sacrifice might reply, “Take as much as you want, but the fat must be burned first.” Then the servant would demand, “No, give it to me now, or I’ll take it by force.” ¹⁷ So the sin of these young men was very serious in the Lord’s sight, for they treated the Lord’s offerings with contempt.

¹⁸ But Samuel, though he was only a boy, served the Lord. He wore a linen garment like that of a priest.^{[d] 19} Each year his mother made a small coat for him and brought it to him when she came with her husband for the sacrifice. ²⁰ Before they returned home, Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the Lord give you other children to take the place of this one she gave to the Lord.^[e]” ²¹ And the Lord blessed Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.

²² Now Eli was very old, but he was aware of what his sons were doing to the people of Israel. He knew, for instance, that his sons were seducing the young women who assisted at the entrance of the Tabernacle.^{[f] 23} Eli said to them, “I have been hearing reports from all the people about the wicked things you are doing. Why do you keep sinning? ²⁴ You must stop, my sons! The reports I hear among the Lord’s people are not good. ²⁵ If someone sins against another person, God^[g] can mediate for the guilty party. But if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede?” But Eli’s sons wouldn’t listen to their father, for the Lord was already planning to put them to death.

²⁶ Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew taller and grew in favor with the Lord and with the people.

A Warning for Eli’s Family

²⁷ One day a man of God came to Eli and gave him this message from the Lord: “I revealed myself^[h] to your ancestors when they were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. ²⁸ I chose your ancestor Aaron^[i] from among all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer sacrifices on my altar, to burn incense, and to wear the priestly vest^[j] as he served me. And I assigned the sacrificial offerings to you priests. ²⁹ So why do you scorn my sacrifices and offerings? Why do you give your sons more honor than you give me—for you and they have become fat from the best offerings of my people Israel!

³⁰ “Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I promised that your branch of the tribe of Levi^[k] would always be my priests. But I will honor those who honor me, and I will despise those who think lightly of me. ³¹ The time is coming when I will put an end to your family, so it will no longer serve as my priests. All the members of your family will die before their time. None will reach old age. ³² You will watch with envy as I pour out prosperity on the people of Israel. But no members of your family will ever live out their days. ³³ The few not cut off from serving at my altar will survive, but only so their eyes can go blind and their hearts break, and their children will die a violent death.^{[l] 34} And to prove that what I have said will come true, I will cause your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, to die on the same day!

³⁵ “Then I will raise up a faithful priest who will serve me and do what I desire. I will establish his family, and they will be priests to my anointed kings forever. ³⁶ Then all of your surviving family will bow before him, begging for money and food. ‘Please,’ they will say, ‘give us jobs among the priests so we will have enough to eat.’”

Psalm 113

Samson’s Riddle

14 One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye. ² When he returned home, he told his father and mother, “A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me.”

³ His father and mother objected. “Isn’t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?” they asked. “Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?”

But Samson told his father, “Get her for me! She looks good to me.” ⁴ His father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.

⁵ As Samson and his parents were going down to Timnah, a young lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyards of Timnah. ⁶ At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he ripped the lion’s jaws apart with his bare hands. He did it as easily as if it were a young goat. But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it. ⁷ When Samson arrived in Timnah, he talked with the woman and was very pleased with her.

⁸ Later, when he returned to Timnah for the wedding, he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. And he found that a swarm of bees had made some honey in the carcass. ⁹ He scooped some of the honey into his hands and ate it along the way. He also gave some to his father and mother, and they ate it. But he didn’t tell them he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party at Timnah, as was the custom for elite young men. ¹¹ When the bride’s parents^[a] saw him, they selected thirty young men from the town to be his companions.

¹² Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle. If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration, I will give you thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing. ¹³ But if you can’t solve it, then you must give me thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing.”

“All right,” they agreed, “let’s hear your riddle.”

¹⁴ So he said:

Three days later they were still trying to figure it out. ¹⁵ On the fourth^[b] day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle for us, or we will burn down your father’s house with you in it. Did you invite us to this party just to make us poor?”

¹⁶ So Samson’s wife came to him in tears and said, “You don’t love me; you hate me! You have given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.”

“I haven’t even given the answer to my father or mother,” he replied. “Why should I tell you?” ¹⁷ So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the rest of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day he told her the answer because she was tormenting him with her nagging. Then she explained the riddle to the young men.

¹⁸ So before sunset of the seventh day, the men of the town came to Samson with their answer:

Samson replied, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have solved my riddle!”

¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his father and mother. ²⁰ So his wife was given in marriage to the man who had been Samson’s best man at the wedding.

Samson’s Vengeance on the Philistines

15 Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife. He said, “I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,” but her father wouldn’t let him in.

² “I truly thought you must hate her,” her father explained, “so I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.”

³ Samson said, “This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going to do to you Philistines.” ⁴ Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails. ⁵ Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.

⁶ “Who did this?” the Philistines demanded.

“Samson,” was the reply, “because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s wife to be married to his best man.” So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death.

⁷ “Because you did this,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!” ⁸ So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and spreading out near the town of Lehi. ¹⁰ The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you attacking us?”

The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to capture Samson. We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.”

¹¹ So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us?”

But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.”

¹² But the men of Judah told him, “We have come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”

“All right,” Samson said. “But promise that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³ “We will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines,” they replied. “We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ As Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists. ¹⁵ Then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it. ¹⁶ Then Samson said,

¹⁷ When he finished his boasting, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was named Jawbone Hill.^[c]

¹⁸ Samson was now very thirsty, and he cried out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of these pagans?” ¹⁹ So God caused water to gush out of a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and Samson was revived as he drank. Then he named that place “The Spring of the One Who Cried Out,”^[d] and it is still in Lehi to this day.

²⁰ Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land.

Samson Carries Away Gaza’s Gates

16 One day Samson went to the Philistine town of Gaza and spent the night with a prostitute. ² Word soon spread^[e] that Samson was there, so the men of Gaza gathered together and waited all night at the town gates. They kept quiet during the night, saying to themselves, “When the light of morning comes, we will kill him.”

³ But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the town gate, including the two posts, and lifted them up, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them all the way to the top of the hill across from Hebron.

Samson and Delilah

⁴ Some time later Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the valley of Sorek. ⁵ The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, “Entice Samson to tell you what makes him so strong and how he can be overpowered and tied up securely. Then each of us will give you 1,100 pieces^[f] of silver.”

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes you so strong and what it would take to tie you up securely.”

⁷ Samson replied, “If I were tied up with seven new bowstrings that have not yet been dried, I would become as weak as anyone else.”

⁸ So the Philistine rulers brought Delilah seven new bowstrings, and she tied Samson up with them. ⁹ She had hidden some men in one of the inner rooms of her house, and she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” But Samson snapped the bowstrings as a piece of string snaps when it is burned by a fire. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.

¹⁰ Afterward Delilah said to him, “You’ve been making fun of me and telling me lies! Now please tell me how you can be tied up securely.”

¹¹ Samson replied, “If I were tied up with brand-new ropes that had never been used, I would become as weak as anyone else.”

¹² So Delilah took new ropes and tied him up with them. The men were hiding in the inner room as before, and again Delilah cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” But again Samson snapped the ropes from his arms as if they were thread.

¹³ Then Delilah said, “You’ve been making fun of me and telling me lies! Now tell me how you can be tied up securely.”

Samson replied, “If you were to weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on your loom and tighten it with the loom shuttle, I would become as weak as anyone else.”

So while he slept, Delilah wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric. ¹⁴ Then she tightened it with the loom shuttle.^[g] Again she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!” But Samson woke up, pulled back the loom shuttle, and yanked his hair away from the loom and the fabric.

¹⁵ Then Delilah pouted, “How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me? You’ve made fun of me three times now, and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong!” ¹⁶ She tormented him with her nagging day after day until he was sick to death of it.

¹⁷ Finally, Samson shared his secret with her. “My hair has never been cut,” he confessed, “for I was dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as anyone else.”

¹⁸ Delilah realized he had finally told her the truth, so she sent for the Philistine rulers. “Come back one more time,” she said, “for he has finally told me his secret.” So the Philistine rulers returned with the money in their hands. ¹⁹ Delilah lulled Samson to sleep with his head in her lap, and then she called in a man to shave off the seven locks of his hair. In this way she began to bring him down,^[h] and his strength left him.

²⁰ Then she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!”

When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him.

²¹ So the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains and forced to grind grain in the prison.

²² But before long, his hair began to grow back.