¹⁰ His father met with the woman, and Samson held a wedding feast there, as young men were accustomed to do. ¹¹ When the Philistines saw him, they selected thirty young men to serve as attendants.

¹² Samson said to them, “Allow me to tell you a riddle. If you figure out the solution and tell me within the seven days of the feast, I will give to you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing. ¹³ But if you are not able to tell me, you will give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.”

So they said to him, “Tell your riddle. Let us hear it!”

¹⁴ Samson said to them,

But they were not able to solve the riddle for three days.

¹⁵ Then, on the fourth day,^[a] they said to Samson’s wife, “Persuade your husband so that you can tell us the solution to the riddle, or we will set you on fire with the house of your father. You invited us in order to take our property, didn’t you?”

¹⁶ Samson’s wife cried on his shoulder and said, “You certainly hate me and do not love me. You told a riddle to my people, but you have not explained it to me!”

Samson said to her, “Look! I have not told even my father and my mother, and I should tell you?” ¹⁷ But she cried to him for the rest of the seven-day feast.^[b] Finally on the seventh day he told her, because she kept nagging him. Then she explained the riddle to the Philistine young men.

¹⁸ So the men of the town said to Samson on the seventh day, just before the sun went down:

But he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle.”

¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men from there. Then he took the clothing that he stripped off them and gave the clothing to the men who had solved the riddle. He was burning with anger as he went back to his father’s house. ²⁰ Meanwhile the Philistines gave Samson’s wife to one of the men who had attended him.