⁹ Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi. ¹⁰ So the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did 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 ^(A)that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.” ¹² Then they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may hand you over to the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not ^[a]kill me.” ¹³ So they said to ^[b]him, “No, but we will bind you tightly and give you into their hands; but we certainly will not kill you.” Then they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And ^(B)the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him so that the ropes that were on his arms were like flax that has burned with fire, and his restraints ^[c]dropped from his hands. ¹⁵ Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out with his hand and took it, and ^[d]killed ^(C)a thousand men with it. ¹⁶ And Samson said,

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place ^[g]Ramath-lehi. ¹⁸ Then he became very thirsty, and he ^(D)called to the Lord and said, “You have ^[h]handed this great ^[i]victory over to Your servant, and now ^[j]am I to die of thirst ^[k]and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, ^(E)his ^[l]strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it ^[m]En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. ²⁰ So ^(F)he judged Israel for twenty years in ^(G)the days of the Philistines.