So the sons of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had saved them from the hands of all their enemies on every side;

Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and raised his voice and called out. And he said to them, “Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, that God may listen to you.

But the olive tree said to them, ‘Shall I give up my fatness with which God and mankind are honored, and go to wave over the trees?’

But the vine said to them, ‘Shall I give up my new wine, which cheers God and mankind, and go to wave over the trees?’

Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem; and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,

So they went out to the field and gathered the grapes of their vineyards and trampled them, and held a festival; and they went into the house of their god, and ate and drank and cursed Abimelech.

So God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father in killing his seventy brothers.

God also returned all the wickedness of the men of Shechem on their heads, and the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal came upon them.

Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; so they abandoned the Lord and did not serve Him.

Then the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against You, for indeed, we have abandoned our God and served the Baals.”

Yet you abandoned Me and served other gods; therefore I will no longer save you.

Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”

So they removed the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord; and He could no longer endure the misery of Israel.

And the Lord, the God of Israel, handed Sihon and all his people over to Israel, and they defeated them; so Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.

And now the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites from His people Israel; so should you possess it?

Do you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whatever the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess it.

For behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he will begin to save Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. So I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name.

But he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son, and now you shall not drink wine or strong drink, nor eat any unclean thing, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

Then Manoah pleaded with the Lord and said, “Lord, please let the man of God whom You have sent come to us again so that he may teach us what we are to do for the boy who is to be born.”

And God listened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.

So Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God.”

But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, “A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man.”

Now the governors of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to celebrate, for they said, “Our god has handed Samson our enemy over to us.”