Judges 13:15-24

New Living Translation

¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”

¹⁶ “I will stay,” the angel of the Lord replied, “but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.” (Manoah didn’t realize it was the angel of the Lord.)

¹⁷ Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you.”

¹⁸ “Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”

¹⁹ Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. ²⁰ As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground.

²¹ The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, ²² and he said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God!”

²³ But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”

²⁴ When her son was born, she named him Samson. And the Lord blessed him as he grew up.