Judges 15:1-8

Common English Bible

Samson attacks the Philistines

15 Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a young goat. He said, “Let me go into my wife’s bedroom.”

But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in. ² Her father said, “I was so sure that you had completely rejected her that I gave her in marriage to one of your companions. Don’t you think her younger sister is even better? Let her be your wife instead.”

³ Samson replied, “No one can blame me now for being ready to bring down trouble on the Philistines!”

⁴ Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ He lit the torches and released the foxes into the Philistines’ grain fields. So he burned the stacked grain, standing grain, vineyards, and olive orchards.

⁶ The Philistines inquired, “Who did this?”

So it was reported, “Samson the Timnite’s son-in-law did it, because his father-in-law gave his wife in marriage to one of his companions.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

⁷ Samson then responded to them, “If this is how you act, then I won’t stop until I get revenge on you!” ⁸ He struck them hard, taking their legs right out from under them.^[a] Then he traveled down and stayed in a cave in the rock at Etam.