²⁰ And Samson's wife was given to ^(A)his companion, ^(B)who had been his best man.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with ^(C)a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. ² And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, ^(D)so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.” ³ And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards. ⁶ Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife ^(E)and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up and ^(F)burned her and her father with fire. ⁷ And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit.” ⁸ And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the ^(G)cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and ^(H)made a raid on ^(I)Lehi. ¹⁰ And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.” ¹¹ Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that ^(J)the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.” ¹² And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³ They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two ^(K)new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. ^(L)Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. ¹⁵ And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, ^(M)and with it he struck 1,000 men. ¹⁶ And Samson said,

¹⁷ As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place ^(N)was called Ramath-lehi.^[a]

¹⁸ And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, ^(O)“You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ And God split open the hollow place that is ^(P)at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, ^(Q)his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore;^[b] it is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰ And he judged Israel ^(R)in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

¹⁷ “But ^(A)as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, ^(B)the people increased and multiplied in Egypt ¹⁸ until there arose over Egypt another king ^(C)who did not know Joseph. ^19 (D)He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, ^(E)so that they would not be kept alive. ^20 (F)At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house, ²¹ and ^(G)when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²² And Moses ^(H)was instructed in ^(I)all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was ^(J)mighty in his words and deeds.

²³ “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart ^(K)to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. ²⁵ He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. ^26 (L)And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ^(M)‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ At this retort ^(N)Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, ^(O)where he became the father of two sons.

⁴³ After ^(A)the two days he departed for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (For Jesus himself had testified ^(B)that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) ⁴⁵ So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, ^(C)having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For ^(D)they too had gone to the feast.

Jesus Heals an Official's Son

⁴⁶ So he came again to ^(E)Cana in Galilee, ^(F)where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus ^(G)had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ So Jesus said to him, ^(H)“Unless you^[a] see signs and wonders you will not believe.” ⁴⁹ The official said to him, “Sir, come down ^(I)before my child dies.” ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his servants^[b] met him and told him that his son was recovering. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour^[c] the fever left him.” ⁵³ The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, ^(J)and all his household. ^54 (K)This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.