Samson Burns the Philistine Harvest

15 A while later during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing along a young goat, and told his father-in-law,^[a] “I’m going into my wife’s room.” But her father wouldn’t give permission for him^[b] to go.

² Her father said, “Because I honestly thought that you hated her deeply, I gave her in marriage to your best man.^[c] Isn’t her younger sister better than she? Please then, let her be yours instead.”

³ Samson replied to them, “This time I’ll be blameless when I do something evil to the Philistines.” ⁴ So Samson went out, caught 300 foxes, grabbed some torches,^[d] tied^[e] the foxes together in pairs at their tails,^[f] and fastened a torch^[g] between each pair of tails. ⁵ Then he ignited the torches, set the foxes loose into the Philistines’ unharvested grain, and burned up both the harvested shocks and the standing grain, along with their vineyards and olive groves.

⁶ Then the Philistines demanded, “Who did this?”

Someone said, “Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite, because his father-in-law^[h] took Samson’s^[i] wife and gave her to the best man at Samson’s wedding.”^[j] In retaliation, the Philistines came up and burned her and her father to death.

⁷ Samson replied to them, “Because you did this, I’m not going to stop until I get my revenge against you!” ⁸ So he attacked them ruthlessly^[k] in a massive slaughter, then left to live in the caves of Etam.