Chapter 15

Samson Defeats the Philistines. ¹ After some time, in the season of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing a young goat. But when he said, “Let me go into my wife’s room,” her father would not let him go in. ² He said, “I thought you hated her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is better; you may have her instead.” ³ Samson said to him, “This time I am guiltless if I harm the Philistines.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and turning them tail to tail, he took some torches and tied one between each pair of tails. ⁵ He then kindled the torches and set the jackals loose in the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning both the shocks and standing grain, the vineyards and olive groves.

^6 (A)When the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” they were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because his wife was taken and given to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and destroyed her and her family by fire.^{(B) 7} Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ And he struck them hip and thigh—a great slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cleft of the crag of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines went up and encamped in Judah, deploying themselves against Lehi.^{(C) 10} When the men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?” they answered, “To take Samson prisoner; to do to him as he has done to us.” ¹¹ Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the crag of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are our rulers? Why, then, have you done this to us?” He answered them, “As they have done to me, so have I done to them.” ¹² They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and deliver you to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³ “No,” they replied, “we will only bind you and hand you over to them. We will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the crag. ¹⁴ When he reached Lehi, and the Philistines came shouting to meet him,^(D) the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him: the ropes around his arms became like flax that is consumed by fire, and his bonds melted away from his hands. ¹⁵ Coming upon the fresh jawbone of an ass, he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.^{(E) 16} Then Samson said,

¹⁷ As he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from him; and so that place was named Ramath-lehi.^{[a] 18} Being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord and said, “You have put this great victory into the hand of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ Then God split the cavity in Lehi, and water issued from it, and Samson drank till his spirit returned and he revived. Hence it is called En-hakkore^[b] in Lehi to this day.

²⁰ Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.^(F)

Chapter 16

¹ Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and visited her. ² The people of Gaza were told, “Samson has come here,” and they surrounded him with an ambush at the city gate all night long. And all the night they waited, saying, “At morning light we will kill him.” ³ Samson lay there until midnight. Then he rose at midnight, seized the doors of the city gate and the two gateposts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He hoisted them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the ridge opposite Hebron.

Samson and Delilah. ⁴ After that he fell in love with a woman in the Wadi Sorek whose name was Delilah. ^5 (G)The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said, “Trick him and find out where he gets his great strength, and how we may overcome and bind him so as to make him helpless. Then for our part, we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me where you get your great strength and how you may be bound so as to be made helpless.” ⁷ “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not dried,” Samson answered her, “I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.” ⁸ So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not dried, and she bound him with them. ⁹ She had men lying in wait in the room, and she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a thread of tow is snapped by a whiff of flame; and his strength remained unexplained.

¹⁰ Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies. Now tell me how you may be bound.” ¹¹ “If they bind me tight with new ropes, with which no work has been done,” he answered her, “I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.” ¹² So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them. Then she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” For there were men lying in wait in the room. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like thread.

¹³ Delilah said to Samson again, “Up to now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you may be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my hair into the web and fasten them with the pin, I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.” ¹⁴ So when he went to bed, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into the web, and fastened them with the pin. Then she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” Awakening from his sleep, he pulled out both the loom and the web.

^15 (H)Then she said to him, “How can you say ‘I love you’ when your heart is not mine? Three times already you have mocked me, and not told me where you get your great strength!” ^16 (I)She pressed him continually and pestered him till he was deathly weary of it. ¹⁷ So he told her all that was in his heart and said, “No razor has touched my head, for I have been a nazirite for God from my mother’s womb.^(J) If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.” ¹⁸ When Delilah realized that he had told her all that was in his heart, she summoned the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this time, for he has told me all that is in his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came to her and brought the money with them.^{(K) 19} She put him to sleep on her lap, and called for a man who shaved off the seven locks of his hair. He immediately became helpless, for his strength had left him.^{[c] 20} When she said “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” he woke from his sleep and thought, “I will go out as I have done time and again and shake myself free.” He did not realize that the Lord had left him. ²¹ But the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. Then they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze fetters, and he was put to grinding grain in the prison. ²² But the hair of his head began to grow as soon as it was shaved.

The Death of Samson. ^23 (L)The lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon^[d] and to celebrate. They said, “Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our power.” ²⁴ When the people saw him, they praised their god. For they said,

²⁵ When their spirits were high, they said, “Call Samson that he may amuse us.” So they called Samson from the prison, and he provided amusement for them. They made him stand between the columns, ²⁶ and Samson said to the attendant who was holding his hand, “Put me where I may touch the columns that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.” ²⁷ The temple was full of men and women: all the lords of the Philistines were there, and from the roof about three thousand men and women looked on as Samson provided amusement. ²⁸ Samson cried out to the Lord and said, “Lord God, remember me! Strengthen me only this once that I may avenge myself on the Philistines at one blow for my two eyes.” ²⁹ Samson grasped the two middle columns on which the temple rested and braced himself against them, one at his right, the other at his left. ³⁰ Then saying, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Samson pushed hard, and the temple fell upon the lords and all the people who were in it. Those he killed by his dying were more than those he had killed during his lifetime.

³¹ His kinsmen and all his father’s house went down and bore him up for burial in the grave of Manoah his father between Zorah and Eshtaol. He had judged Israel for twenty years.^(M)

Zayin

Heth

The Cure of Simon’s Mother-in-Law. ^29 (A)On leaving the synagogue he entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. ³⁰ Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. ³¹ He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them.

Other Healings. ³² When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. ³³ The whole town was gathered at the door. ³⁴ He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Jesus Leaves Capernaum. ^35 (B)Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. ³⁶ Simon and those who were with him pursued him ³⁷ and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” ³⁸ He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” ³⁹ So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.

The Cleansing of a Leper. ^40 (C)A leper^[a] came to him [and kneeling down] begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” ⁴¹ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”^{(D) 42} The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.^{(E) 43} Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once. ⁴⁴ Then he said to him, “See that you tell no one anything, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”^{(F) 45} The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter. He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.