Samson’s Marriage

14 Once Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw a Philistine woman. ² Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw a Philistine woman at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.”^{(A) 3} But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among your kin or among all our^[a] people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, because she pleases me.” ⁴ His father and mother did not know that this was from the Lord, for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.^(B)

⁵ Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him. ⁶ The spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.^{(C) 7} Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson.^{(D) 8} After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and 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. 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 taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰ His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there, as the young men were accustomed to do. ¹¹ When the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. ¹² Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.^{(E) 13} But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.” So they said to him, “Ask your riddle; let us hear it.” ¹⁴ He said to them,

But for three days they could not explain the riddle.

¹⁵ On the fourth^[b] day they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?”^{(F) 16} So Samson’s wife wept before him, saying, “You hate me; you do not really love me. You have asked a riddle of my people, but you have not explained it to me.” He said to her, “Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?” ¹⁷ She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted, and because she nagged him, on the seventh day he told her. Then she explained the riddle to her people. ¹⁸ The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down,

And he said to them,

¹⁹ Then the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the festal garments to those who had explained the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house.^{(H) 20} And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.^(I)

The Example of Jesus

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,^[a] and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,^{(A) 2} looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of^[b] the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.^(B)

³ Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners,^[c] so that you may not grow weary in your souls or lose heart.^{(C) 4} In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children—

⁷ Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children, for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?^{(F) 8} If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children.^{(G) 9} Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.^{(H) 11} Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.^(I)

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

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. ² Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?”^{(A) 3} Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes and took some torches, and he turned the foxes^[a] tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ 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 vineyards and^[b] olive groves. ⁶ Then the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father.^{(B) 7} Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ He struck them down hip and thigh with a massive defeat, 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.^{(C) 10} 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 they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”^{(D) 12} They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” 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 rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.^{(E) 15} Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.^{(F) 16} And Samson said,

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone, and that place was called Ramath-lehi.^[c]

¹⁸ By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”^{(G) 19} So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore,^[d] which is at Lehi to this day.^{(H) 20} And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.^(I)

Samson and Delilah

16 Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. ² The Gazites were told,^[e] “Samson has come here.” So they circled around and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, thinking, “Let us wait^[f] until the light of the morning; then we will kill him.”^{(J) 3} But Samson lay only until midnight. Then at midnight he rose up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

Warnings against Rejecting God’s Grace

¹⁴ Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and through it many become defiled.^{(A) 16} See to it that no one becomes an immoral and godless person, as Esau was, who sold his birthright for a single meal.^{(B) 17} You know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing^[a] with tears.^(C)

¹⁸ You have not come to something^[b] that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest,^{(D) 19} and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.^{(E) 20} (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.”^{(F) 21} Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”)^{(G) 22} But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,^{(H) 23} and to the assembly^[c] of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,^{(I) 24} and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.^(J)

²⁵ See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven!^{(K) 26} At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.”^{(L) 27} This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.^{(M) 28} Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for indeed our God is a consuming fire.^(N)