Judges 15:1-8

Modern English Version

Samson’s Revenge

15 After a while, during the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, taking a young goat. He said, “I’m going in to my wife in her bedroom,” but her father would not let him go in.

² Her father said, “I thought that you thoroughly hated her, so I gave her to your best man. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, let her be your wife instead.”

³ Samson said to them, “This time I cannot be blamed by the Philistines when I do them harm.” ⁴ Samson went and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches and turned the foxes tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ He set fire to the torches and sent the foxes into standing grain of the Philistines. He burned the harvested grain, standing grain, vineyards, and olive trees.

⁶ The Philistines asked, “Who did this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because the Timnite took the bride of Samson and gave her to his best man.”

So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire. ⁷ Samson said to them, “Because you have done this, I will take revenge on you, and afterwards I will stop.” ⁸ He struck them down with a mighty blow, then went to live in a cave in Etam Rock.