⁹ The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.^{(A) 10} The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?”

“We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹ Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us?^(B) What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

¹² They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Samson said, “Swear to me^(C) that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³ “Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes^(D) and led him up from the rock. ¹⁴ As he approached Lehi,^(E) the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him.^(F) The ropes on his arms became like charred flax,^(G) and the bindings dropped from his hands. ¹⁵ Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.^(H)

¹⁶ Then Samson said,

¹⁷ When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.^[b](J)

¹⁸ Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the Lord,^(K) “You have given your servant this great victory.^(L) Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived.^(M) So the spring^(N) was called En Hakkore,^[c] and it is still there in Lehi.

²⁰ Samson led^[d] Israel for twenty years^(O) in the days of the Philistines.