Samson’s Marriage

14 Then Samson went down to Timnah, and he saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. ² So he came ^[a]back and told his father and ^[b]mother, “I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines; so now, get her for me as a wife.” ³ But his father and his mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your ^(A)relatives, or among all ^[c]our people, that you go to ^(B)take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” Yet Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, because she is right ^[d]for me.” ⁴ However, his father and mother did not know that ^(C)this was of the Lord, for He was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. And at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

⁵ Then Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came as far as the vineyards of Timnah; and behold, a young lion came roaring toward him. ⁶ And ^(D)the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, so that ^(E)he tore it apart as one tears apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand; but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. ⁷ So he went down and talked to the woman; and she ^[e]looked pleasing to Samson. ⁸ When he returned later to take her, he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion; and behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the body of the lion. ⁹ So he took out ^[f]the honey on his ^[g]hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had took the honey out of the body of the lion.

¹⁰ Then his father went down to the woman; and Samson held a feast there, for the young men customarily did this. ¹¹ When they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

Samson’s Riddle

¹² Then Samson said to them, “Let me now ^(F)propose a riddle for you; if you actually tell me ^[h]the answer within the seven days of the feast, and solve it, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty ^(G)outfits of clothes. ¹³ But if you are unable to tell me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty outfits of clothes.” And they said to him, “Propose your riddle, so that we may hear it.” ¹⁴ So he said to them,

But they could not tell the answer to the riddle in three days.

¹⁵ Then it came about on the ^[i]fourth day that they said to Samson’s wife, “^(H)Entice your husband, so that he will tell us the riddle, ^(I)or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us to impoverish us? Is this not so?” ¹⁶ So Samson’s wife wept in front of him and said, “^(J)You only hate me, and you do not love me; you have proposed a riddle to the sons of my people, and have not told it to me.” And he said to her, “Behold, I have not told it to my father or mother; so should I tell you?” ¹⁷ However she wept before him for seven days while their feast lasted. And on the seventh day he told her because she pressed him so hard. She then told the riddle to the sons of her people. ¹⁸ So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

And he said to them,

¹⁹ Then ^(K)the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty men of them and took what they were wearing and gave the outfits of clothes to those who told the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house. ²⁰ But Samson’s wife was ^(L)given to his companion who had been his ^[j]friend.

Jesus, the Example

12 Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s ^(A)rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s ^(B)run with ^(C)endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking only at Jesus, the ^[a](D)originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him ^(E)endured the cross, ^(F)despising the shame, and has ^(G)sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ For ^(H)consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary ^[b](I)and lose heart.

A Father’s Discipline

^4 (J)You have not yet resisted ^[c](K)to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; ⁵ and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; ^(P)God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, ^(Q)of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we had ^[d]earthly fathers to discipline us, and we ^(R)respected them; shall we not much more be subject to ^(S)the Father of ^[e]spirits, and ^(T)live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, ^(U)so that we may share His holiness. ^11 (V)For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the ^(W)peaceful fruit of righteousness.

¹² Therefore, ^[f](X)strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, ¹³ and ^(Y)make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is impaired may not be dislocated, but rather ^(Z)be healed.

Samson Burns Philistine Crops

15 But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife ^(A)with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter. ² Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I ^(B)gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not ^[a]more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours ^[b]instead.” ³ Samson then said to them, “This time I will have been blameless regarding the Philistines when I do them harm.” ⁴ And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned the jackals tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. ⁵ When he had set fire to the torches, he released the jackals into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to both the bundled heaps and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and olive groves. ⁶ Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And some said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because ^[c]he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and ^(C)burned her and her father to death with fire. ⁷ Then Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will certainly take revenge on you, and only after that will I stop.” ⁸ So he struck them ^[d]ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and afterward he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi. ¹⁰ So the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order 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 ^(D)that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.” ¹² Then they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may hand you over to the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not ^[e]kill me.” ¹³ So they said to ^[f]him, “No, but we will bind you tightly and give you into their hands; but we certainly will not kill you.” Then they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And ^(E)the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him so that the ropes that were on his arms were like flax that has burned with fire, and his restraints ^[g]dropped from his hands. ¹⁵ Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out with his hand and took it, and ^[h]killed ^(F)a thousand men with it. ¹⁶ And Samson said,

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place ^[k]Ramath-lehi. ¹⁸ Then he became very thirsty, and he ^(G)called to the Lord and said, “You have ^[l]handed this great ^[m]victory over to Your servant, and now ^[n]am I to die of thirst ^[o]and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, ^(H)his ^[p]strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it ^[q]En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. ²⁰ So ^(I)he judged Israel for twenty years in ^(J)the days of the Philistines.

Samson’s Weakness

16 Now Samson went to ^(K)Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and had relations with her. ² When it was reported to the Gazites, saying, “Samson has come here,” they ^(L)surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, “Let’s wait until the morning light, then we will kill him.” ³ Now Samson lay asleep until midnight, and at midnight he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two doorposts, and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron.

^14 (A)Pursue peace with all people, and the ^(B)holiness without which no one will ^(C)see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one ^(D)comes short of the grace of God; that no ^(E)root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many become ^(F)defiled; ¹⁶ that there be no ^(G)sexually immoral or ^(H)godless person like Esau, ^(I)who sold his own birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that even afterward, ^(J)when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Contrast of Sinai and Zion

^18 (K)For you have not come to ^(L)a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, ¹⁹ and to the ^(M)blast of a trumpet and the ^(N)sound of words, which sound was such that those who heard ^(O)begged that no further word be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they could not ^[a]cope with the command, “^(P)If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” ²¹ And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “^(Q)I am terrified and trembling.” ²² But ^(R)you have come to Mount Zion and to ^(S)the city of ^(T)the living God, ^(U)the heavenly Jerusalem, and to ^(V)myriads of ^[b]angels, ²³ to the general assembly and ^(W)church of the firstborn who ^(X)are enrolled in heaven, and to God, ^(Y)the Judge of all, and to the ^(Z)spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the ^(AA)mediator of a new covenant, and to the ^(AB)sprinkled blood, which speaks better than ^(AC)the blood of Abel.

The Unshaken Kingdom

^25 (AD)See to it that you do not refuse Him who is ^(AE)speaking. For ^(AF)if those did not escape when they ^(AG)refused him who ^(AH)warned them on earth, ^[c]much less will we escape who turn away from Him who ^(AI)warns us from heaven. ²⁶ And ^(AJ)His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “^(AK)Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” ²⁷ This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes ^(AL)the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore, since we receive a ^(AM)kingdom which cannot be shaken, let’s ^[d]show gratitude, by which we may ^(AN)offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; ²⁹ for ^(AO)our God is a consuming fire.