Judges 10:6-16:31

Revised Standard Version

Oppression by the Ammonites

⁶ And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Ba′als and the Ash′taroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook the Lord, and did not serve him. ⁷ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites, ⁸ and they crushed and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. ⁹ And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of E′phraim; so that Israel was sorely distressed.

¹⁰ And the people of Israel cried to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against thee, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Ba′als.” ¹¹ And the Lord said to the people of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines? ¹² The Sido′nians also, and the Amal′ekites, and the Ma′onites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand. ¹³ Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more. ¹⁴ Go and cry to the gods whom you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress.” ¹⁵ And the people of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to thee; only deliver us, we pray thee, this day.” ¹⁶ So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord; and he became indignant over the misery of Israel.

¹⁷ Then the Ammonites were called to arms, and they encamped in Gilead; and the people of Israel came together, and they encamped at Mizpah. ¹⁸ And the people, the leaders of Gilead, said one to another, “Who is the man that will begin to fight against the Ammonites? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Jephthah

11 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a harlot. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. ² And Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they thrust Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall not inherit in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.” ³ Then Jephthah fled from his brothers, and dwelt in the land of Tob; and worthless fellows collected round Jephthah, and went raiding with him.

⁴ After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. ⁵ And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob; ⁶ and they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our leader, that we may fight with the Ammonites.” ⁷ But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me, and drive me out of my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in trouble?” ⁸ And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned to you now, that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” ⁹ Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” ¹⁰ And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.” ¹¹ So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and leader over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.

¹² Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What have you against me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?” ¹³ And the king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel on coming from Egypt took away my land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now therefore restore it peaceably.” ¹⁴ And Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the Ammonites ¹⁵ and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites, ¹⁶ but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh. ¹⁷ Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Let us pass, we pray, through your land’; but the king of Edom would not listen. And they sent also to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh. ¹⁸ Then they journeyed through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and arrived on the east side of the land of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon; but they did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab. ¹⁹ Israel then sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, ‘Let us pass, we pray, through your land to our country.’ ²⁰ But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory; so Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped at Jahaz, and fought with Israel. ²¹ And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them; so Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country. ²² And they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. ²³ So then the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? ²⁴ Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess. ²⁵ Now are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever go to war with them? ²⁶ While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aro′er and its villages, and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time? ²⁷ I therefore have not sinned against you, and you do me wrong by making war on me; the Lord, the Judge, decide this day between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.” ²⁸ But the king of the Ammonites did not heed the message of Jephthah which he sent to him.

Jephthah’s Vow

²⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manas′seh, and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. ³⁰ And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, ³¹ then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.” ³² So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. ³³ And he smote them from Aro′er to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a very great slaughter. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

Jephthah’s Daughter

³⁴ Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. ³⁵ And when he saw her, he rent his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! you have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me; for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” ³⁶ And she said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone forth from your mouth, now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites.” ³⁷ And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go and wander^[a] on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.” ³⁸ And he said, “Go.” And he sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. ³⁹ And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made. She had never known a man. And it became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

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.^[b]

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 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.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a kid; 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; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Pray take her instead.” ³ And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines, when I do them mischief.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred 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 burned up the shocks 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 and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up, and 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 upon you, and after that I will quit.” ⁸ And he smote them hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and made a raid on 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 three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that 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 fall upon me yourselves.” ¹³ They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes which 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 an ass, and put out his hand and seized it, and with it he slew a thousand men. ¹⁶ And Samson said,

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ra′math-le′hi.^[f]

¹⁸ And he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord and said, “Thou hast granted this great deliverance by the hand of thy 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 at Lehi, and there came water from it; and when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkor′e;^[g] it is at Lehi to this day. ²⁰ And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Samson and Delilah

16 Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and he went in to her. ² The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here,” and they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” ³ But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is before Hebron.

⁴ After this he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Deli′lah. ⁵ And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” ⁶ And Deli′lah said to Samson, “Please tell me wherein your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you.” ⁷ And Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings which have not been dried, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” ⁸ Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried, and she bound him with them. ⁹ Now she had men lying in wait in an inner chamber. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings, as a string of tow snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ And Deli′lah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies; please tell me how you might be bound.” ¹¹ And he said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” ¹² So Deli′lah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And the men lying in wait were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

¹³ And Deli′lah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me, and told me lies; tell me how you might be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and make it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” ¹⁴ So while he slept, Deli′lah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web.^[h] And she made them tight with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep, and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

¹⁵ And she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies.” ¹⁶ And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. ¹⁷ And he told her all his mind, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I be shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”

¹⁸ When Deli′lah saw that he had told her all his mind, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this once, for he has told me all his mind.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She made him sleep upon her knees; and she called a man, and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. ²⁰ And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free.” And he did not know that the Lord had left him. ²¹ And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze fetters; and he ground at the mill in the prison. ²² But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Samson’s Death

²³ Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” ²⁴ And when the people saw him, they praised their god; for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has slain many of us.” ²⁵ And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may make sport for us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them. They made him stand between the pillars; ²⁶ and Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” ²⁷ Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, who looked on while Samson made sport.

²⁸ Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be avenged upon the Philistines for one of my two eyes.” ²⁹ And Samson grasped the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and he leaned his weight upon them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. ³⁰ And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were in it. So the dead whom he slew at his death were more than those whom he had slain during his life. ³¹ Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Esh′ta-ol in the tomb of Mano′ah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years.