Samson's Marriage

14 ^(A)Samson went down to ^(B)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. ^(C)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 ^(D)of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the ^(E)uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”

⁴ His father and mother did not know that it was ^(F)from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. ^(G)At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

⁵ Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. ^6 (H)Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. 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 was right in Samson's eyes.

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, ^(I)“Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within ^(J)the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty ^(K)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, ^(L)“Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, ^(M)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, ^(N)“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 ^(O)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 (P)And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to ^(Q)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 ^(R)his companion, ^(S)who had been his best man.

Jesus, Founder and Perfecter of Our Faith

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and ^(A)sin which clings so closely, and ^(B)let us run ^(C)with endurance the race that is ^(D)set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, ^(E)who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising ^(F)the shame, and ^(G)is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Do Not Grow Weary

^3 (H)Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or ^(I)fainthearted. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

⁷ It is for discipline that you have to endure. ^(M)God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ If you are left without discipline, ^(N)in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to ^(O)the Father of spirits ^(P)and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, ^(Q)that we may share his holiness. ^11 (R)For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields ^(S)the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

¹² Therefore ^(T)lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³ and ^(U)make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint ^(V)but rather be healed.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with ^(A)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, ^(B)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 ^(C)and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up and ^(D)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 ^(E)cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and ^(F)made a raid on ^(G)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 ^(H)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 ^(I)new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. ^(J)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, ^(K)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 ^(L)was called Ramath-lehi.^[a]

¹⁸ And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the Lord and said, ^(M)“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 ^(N)at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, ^(O)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 ^(P)in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Samson and Delilah

16 Samson went to ^(Q)Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. ² The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they ^(R)surrounded the place and set an ambush 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 in front of Hebron.

^14 (A)Strive for peace with everyone, and for the ^(B)holiness ^(C)without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one ^(D)fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ^(E)“root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; ¹⁶ that no one is ^(F)sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that ^(G)afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

¹⁸ For you have not come to ^(H)what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest ¹⁹ and ^(I)the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words ^(J)made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they could not endure the order that was given, ^(K)“If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” ²¹ Indeed, ^(L)so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” ²² But you have come to ^(M)Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, ^(N)the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ^(O)innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³ and to ^(P)the assembly^[a] of the firstborn who are ^(Q)enrolled in heaven, and to ^(R)God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, ^(S)the mediator of a new covenant, and to ^(T)the sprinkled blood ^(U)that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

²⁵ See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For ^(V)if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ²⁶ At that time ^(W)his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ^(X)“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ²⁷ This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates ^(Y)the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore let us be grateful for receiving ^(Z)a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus ^(AA)let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our ^(AB)God is a consuming fire.