Intertribal Dissension

12 The men of E′phraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.” ² And Jephthah said to them, “I and my people had a great feud with the Ammonites; and when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand. ³ And when I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hand, and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand; why then have you come up to me this day, to fight against me?” ⁴ Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with E′phraim; and the men of Gilead smote E′phraim, because they said, “You are fugitives of E′phraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of E′phraim and Manas′seh.” ⁵ And the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the E′phraimites. And when any of the fugitives of E′phraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an E′phraimite?” When he said, “No,” ⁶ they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right; then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. And there fell at that time forty-two thousand of the E′phraimites.

⁷ Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in his city in Gilead.^[a]

Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon

⁸ After him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. ⁹ He had thirty sons; and thirty daughters he gave in marriage outside his clan, and thirty daughters he brought in from outside for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. ¹⁰ Then Ibzan died, and was buried at Bethlehem.

¹¹ After him Elon the Zeb′ulunite judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years. ¹² Then Elon the Zeb′ulunite died, and was buried at Ai′jalon in the land of Zeb′ulun.

¹³ After him Abdon the son of Hillel the Pir′athonite judged Israel. ¹⁴ He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy asses; and he judged Israel eight years. ¹⁵ Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pir′athonite died, and was buried at Pir′athon in the land of E′phraim, in the hill country of the Amal′ekites.

The Birth of Samson

13 ^[b]And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

² And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Mano′ah; and his wife was barren and had no children. ³ And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴ Therefore beware, and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, ⁵ for lo, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶ Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very terrible; I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name; ⁷ but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; so then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’”

⁸ Then Mano′ah entreated the Lord, and said, “O, Lord, I pray thee, let the man of God whom thou didst send come again to us, and teach us what we are to do with the boy that will be born.” ⁹ And God listened to the voice of Mano′ah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Mano′ah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰ And the woman ran in haste and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹ And Mano′ah arose and went after his wife, and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” ¹² And Mano′ah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s manner of life, and what is he to do?” ¹³ And the angel of the Lord said to Mano′ah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. ¹⁴ She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.”

¹⁵ Mano′ah said to the angel of the Lord, “Pray, let us detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” ¹⁶ And the angel of the Lord said to Mano′ah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food; but if you make ready a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Mano′ah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) ¹⁷ And Mano′ah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” ¹⁸ And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” ¹⁹ So Mano′ah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord, to him who works^[c] wonders.^{[d] 20} And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar while Mano′ah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Mano′ah and to his wife. Then Mano′ah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²² And Mano′ah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” ²³ But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a cereal offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” ²⁴ And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Ma′haneh-dan, between Zorah and Esh′ta-ol.

Samson’s Marriage

14 Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines. ² Then he came up, and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” ³ But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me; for she pleases me well.”

⁴ His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord; for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

⁵ Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and he came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion roared against him; ⁶ and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion asunder as one tears a kid; and he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. ⁷ Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. ⁸ And after a while he returned to take her; and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. ⁹ He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went; and he came to his father and mother, and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ And his father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there; for so the young men used to do. ¹¹ And when the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. ¹² And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you; if you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments; ¹³ but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” ¹⁴ And he said to them,

And they could not in three days tell what the riddle was.

¹⁵ On the fourth^[e] day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?” ¹⁶ And Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You only hate me, you do not love me; you have put a riddle to my countrymen, and you have not told me what it is.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?” ¹⁷ She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and on the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her countrymen. ¹⁸ And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

And he said to them,

¹⁹ And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he went down to Ash′kelon and killed thirty men of the town, and took their spoil and gave the festal garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house. ²⁰ And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.^[a]

² As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,^[b]

⁴ John the baptizer appeared^[c] in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵ And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. ⁸ I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

The Baptism of Jesus

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; ¹¹ and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son;^[d] with thee I am well pleased.”

The Temptation of Jesus

¹² The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³ And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Jesus Calls the First Disciples

¹⁶ And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁷ And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.” ¹⁸ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹ And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb′edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. ²⁰ And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zeb′edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

The Man with an Unclean Spirit

²¹ And they went into Caper′na-um; and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. ²² And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. ²³ And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; ²⁴ and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” ²⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” ²⁶ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷ And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” ²⁸ And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.