Judges 14:8-20

English Standard Version

⁸ After some days 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 scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. ¹¹ As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. ¹² And Samson said to them, ^(A)“Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within ^(B)the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty ^(C)changes of clothes, ¹³ but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” ¹⁴ And he said to them,

And in three days they could not solve the riddle.

¹⁵ On the fourth^[a] day they said to Samson's wife, ^(D)“Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, ^(E)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 over him and said, ^(F)“You only hate me; you do not love me. You have put a riddle to my people, 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 ^(G)she pressed him hard. Then she told the riddle to her people. 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 (H)And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to ^(I)Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the 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 ^(J)his companion, ^(K)who had been his best man.