Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a ^(A)young goat. And he said, “Let me go in to my wife, into her room.” But her father would not permit him to go in.

² Her father said, “I really thought that you thoroughly ^(B)hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead.”

³ And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!” ⁴ Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶ Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?”

And they answered, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” ^(C)So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.

⁷ Samson said to them, “Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” ⁸ So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of ^(D)Etam.

⁹ Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves ^(E)against Lehi. ¹⁰ And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?”

So they answered, “We have come up to ^[a]arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done 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 that the Philistines ^(F)rule over us? What is this you have done to us?”

And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

¹² But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.”

Then Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”

¹³ So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two ^(G)new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then ^(H)the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds ^[b]broke loose from his hands. ¹⁵ He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and ^(I)killed a thousand men with it. ¹⁶ Then Samson said:

¹⁷ And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place ^[c]Ramath Lehi.

¹⁸ Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord and said, ^(J)“You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ So God split the hollow place that is in ^[d]Lehi, and water came out, and he drank; and ^(K)his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name ^[e]En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. ²⁰ And ^(L)he judged Israel ^(M)twenty years ^(N)in the days of the Philistines.

Samson and Delilah

16 Now Samson went to ^(O)Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her. ² When the Gazites were told, “Samson has come here!” they ^(P)surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They were quiet all night, saying, “In the morning, when it is daylight, we will kill him.” ³ And Samson lay low till midnight; then he arose at midnight, took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two gateposts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

⁴ Afterward it happened that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. ⁵ And the ^(Q)lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, ^(R)“Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and with what you may be bound to afflict you.”

⁷ And Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings, not yet dried, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”

⁸ So the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings, not yet dried, and she bound him with them. ⁹ Now men were lying in wait, staying with her in the room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he broke the bowstrings as a strand of yarn breaks when it touches fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and told me lies. Now, please tell me what you may be bound with.”

¹¹ So he said to her, “If they bind me securely with ^(S)new ropes ^[f]that have never been used, then I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”

¹² Therefore Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And men were lying in wait, staying in the room. But he broke them off his arms like a thread.

¹³ Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me what you may be bound with.”

And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head into the web of the loom”—

¹⁴ So she wove it tightly with the batten of the loom, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep, and pulled out the batten and the web from the loom.

¹⁵ Then she said to him, ^(T)“How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.” ¹⁶ And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was ^[g]vexed to death, ¹⁷ that he ^(U)told her all his heart, and said to her, ^(V)“No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”

¹⁸ When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. ^19 (W)Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then ^[h]she began to torment him, and his strength left him. ²⁰ And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord ^(X)had departed from him.

²¹ Then the Philistines took him and ^[i]put out his ^(Y)eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison. ²² However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.

Samson Dies with the Philistines

²³ Now the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to ^(Z)Dagon their god, and to rejoice. And they said:

²⁴ When the people saw him, they ^(AA)praised their god; for they said:

²⁵ So it happened, when their hearts were ^(AB)merry, that they said, “Call for Samson, that he may perform for us.” So they called for Samson from the prison, and he performed for them. And they stationed him between the pillars. ²⁶ Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars which support the temple, so that I can lean on them.” ²⁷ Now the temple was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there—about three thousand men and women on the ^(AC)roof watching while Samson performed.

²⁸ Then Samson called to the Lord, saying, “O Lord God, ^(AD)remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!” ²⁹ And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. ³⁰ Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.

³¹ And his brothers and all his father’s household came down and took him, and brought him up and ^(AE)buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. He had judged Israel ^(AF)twenty years.

Micah’s Idolatry

17 Now there was a man from the mountains of Ephraim, whose name was ^(AG)Micah. ² And he said to his mother, “The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you, and on which you ^(AH)put a curse, even saying it in my ears—here is the silver with me; I took it.”

And his mother said, ^(AI)“May you be blessed by the Lord, my son!” ³ So when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, “I had wholly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son, to ^(AJ)make a carved image and a molded image; now therefore, I will return it to you.” ⁴ Thus he returned the silver to his mother. Then his mother ^(AK)took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to the silversmith, and he made it into a carved image and a molded image; and they were in the house of Micah.

⁵ The man Micah had a ^(AL)shrine, and made an ^(AM)ephod and ^(AN)household^[j] idols; and he consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. ^6 (AO)In those days there was no king in Israel; ^(AP)everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

⁷ Now there was a young man from ^(AQ)Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah; he was a Levite, and ^(AR)was staying there. ⁸ The man departed from the city of Bethlehem in Judah to stay wherever he could find a place. Then he came to the mountains of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he journeyed. ⁹ And Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?”

So he said to him, “I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I am on my way to find a place to stay.”

¹⁰ Micah said to him, “Dwell with me, ^(AS)and be a ^(AT)father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes, and your sustenance.” So the Levite went in. ¹¹ Then the Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man became like one of his sons to him. ¹² So Micah ^(AU)consecrated^[k] the Levite, and the young man ^(AV)became his priest, and lived in the house of Micah. ¹³ Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, since I have a Levite as ^(AW)priest!”