Beginning
Samson's birth
13 The Israelites again did things that the Lord saw were evil. So he put them under the power of the Philistines for 40 years.
2 There was a man who belonged to Dan's tribe. His name was Manoah and he lived in Zorah. His wife had no children and she could not give birth. 3 The Lord's angel appeared to her. He said, ‘You have not been able to give birth to any children until now. But you will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. 4 You must not drink any wine or any beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. 5 Yes, you will give birth to a son. You must never cut the boy's hair. He is to be a Nazirite.[a] He will belong to God from the time that he is born. He will begin to rescue the Israelites from the power of the Philistines.’
6 The woman went quickly to tell her husband. She said, ‘A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel that God had sent with a message. I was afraid of him. I did not ask where he came from. He did not tell me his name. 7 He said to me, “You will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You must not drink any wine or beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. The boy will belong to me as a Nazirite from his birth until the day that he dies!” ’
8 Manoah prayed to the Lord, ‘Lord, please send the man of God to come to us again. Let him teach us how we should take care of this boy who will be born.’
9 God did what Manoah had asked. The angel came again to visit Manoah's wife. She was resting in the fields and her husband was not with her. 10 She ran to tell her husband, ‘Come quickly! The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again!’
11 Manoah got up and he followed his wife. When he met the man, he asked him, ‘Are you the man who talked to my wife?’ The man said, ‘Yes, I am.’
12 Then Manoah asked him, ‘When what you promised happens, how should the boy live? What kind of work will he do?’
13 The Lord's angel answered, ‘Your wife must be careful to do everything that I told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from vines.[b] She must not drink wine or beer. She must not eat any food that is unclean. She must obey everything that I have commanded her to do.’
15 Manoah said to the Lord's angel, ‘Please stay here with us. We would like to cook a young goat for you to eat.’
16 The angel replied, ‘Even if I stay with you, I will not eat your food. But you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.’ The angel said that because Manoah had not realized that he was the Lord's angel.
17 Then Manoah asked the Lord's angel, ‘What is your name? When what you have promised happens, we will want to give you honour.’ 18 The angel replied, ‘You should not ask what my name is. It is too great for you to understand.’
19 Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering. He offered them on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord surprised them with a miracle. 20 As the flames of fire rose up from the sacrifice to the sky, the Lord's angel went up in the flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell down with their faces towards the ground.
21 The Lord's angel did not appear to them again. Manoah then realized that their visitor was the Lord's own angel. 22 He said to his wife, ‘We are sure to die! We have seen God!’
23 But his wife said to him, ‘The Lord accepted our burnt offering and our grain offering. He would not have done that if he wanted to kill us. He would not have shown us all these great things. He would not have told us about what will happen to us.’
24 Manoah's wife gave birth to a son. She gave him the name ‘Samson’. The child grew to become a man, and the Lord blessed him. 25 The Lord's Spirit began to give Samson strength when he was living in Mahaneh Dan. That place was between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson marries a Philistine woman
14 One day Samson went to Timnah. Samson saw a young Philistine woman. 2 When he returned home, he said to his father and mother, ‘I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah and I want to marry her. Please get her for me as my wife.’
3 His parents replied, ‘You do not need to go to the Philistines to get a wife. They are not the Lord's people. There is surely someone among our own relatives or other Israelites that you would like to marry.’ But Samson said to his father, ‘You must get her for me. She is the right girl for me to marry.’
4 Samson's parents did not realize that the Lord was causing this to happen. The Lord wanted to prepare a way for the Israelites to attack the Philistines, because the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time.
5 Samson went to Timnah, and his parents went too. When he reached some vineyards near Timnah, an angry young lion ran out to attack him. 6 The Lord's Spirit gave Samson great strength. He tore the lion into pieces with his hands. He made it seem very easy, as if he was killing a goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.
7 Then Samson continued on his journey to Timnah. He spoke with the young woman, and she pleased him very much.
8 Some time later, Samson returned to Timnah to marry the young woman. He turned off the path to look at the lion's body. Inside it, there was a crowd of bees and some honey. 9 He took the honey out with his hands. He ate it as he walked along. Then he went to his parents. He gave some of the honey to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken it from the body of the dead lion.
10 Then Samson's father went to Timnah for Samson's marriage. Samson prepared a party for the people there. All the young men did this when they married. 11 When the Philistines saw what Samson was doing, they sent 30 young men to be his friends. 12 Samson said to them, ‘Listen to this clever question. Try to give me an answer before my party finishes in seven days. If you answer the question, I will give you 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes. 13 But if you cannot tell me the answer, you will give me 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes.’ The young men said, ‘Tell us your question.’[c]
14 Samson said to them:
‘Out of the one who eats came something to eat.
Out of the strong one came something sweet.’
After three days, the Philistine men could not find the answer.
15 On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, ‘Find a way to make your husband tell you the answer. If you do not, we will use fire to destroy your father's house, with you inside it! Did you ask us to come to your marriage party to make us poor?’
16 Then Samson's wife went to him and she wept. She said to him, ‘It seems that you hate me. You do not really love me. You have asked my friends a clever question, but you have not told me the answer.’
Samson said to her, ‘I have not told the answer even to my father or mother. So why should I tell you?’
17 Samson's wife continued to weep like that all the days of the party. Finally, she gave him so much trouble that he told her the answer on the seventh day. Then she told the young men the answer to Samson's question.
18 Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the town gave their answer to Samson:
‘There is nothing sweeter than honey!
There is nothing stronger than a lion!’
Samson said to them, ‘You have used my young cow to do your work! Without her you would not have found the answer to my question.’
19 The Lord's Spirit took hold of Samson. He went to Ashkelon and he killed 30 Philistine men there. He took all their clothes and he gave them to the 30 men who had answered his question. He was still very angry as he went back to his family's home.
20 Samson's wife became the wife of the man who had been his special friend at the party.
Samson fights against the Philistines
15 Later, Samson went to visit his wife at the time of the wheat harvest. He took a young goat with him as a gift. He said to her father, ‘I am going into my wife's room to sleep with her.’ But her father stopped him. 2 He said, ‘I was sure that you hated my daughter. So I have given her to your special friend to be his wife. Look at her younger sister. She is more beautiful. Take her as your wife, instead.’
3 Samson said, ‘This time I will not be guilty when I punish the Philistines!’
4 So he went out and he caught 300 foxes. He tied the foxes in pairs by their tails. He tied some dry grass to each pair of tails. 5 Then he lit the grass with fire. He made the foxes run through the fields where the wheat was growing. The fire destroyed all the Philistines' crops, whether they had already cut it down or not. The fire also destroyed their vines and their olive trees.
6 The Philistines asked, ‘Who did this?’ People said to them, ‘It was Samson, the man who married the young woman in Timnah. He did it because her father gave her to Samson's special friend instead of Samson.’
So the Philistines went and burned the man and his daughter to death. 7 Samson said to them, ‘Because you have done this, I will punish you. I will not stop until your punishment is complete.’ 8 He attacked them with great strength. He killed many of them.
After that, Samson went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.
9 The Philistine army went to attack Judah.[d] They made their camp near Lehi and they prepared to fight. 10 The men of Judah asked them, ‘Why have you come to attack us?’ The Philistines replied, ‘We have come to catch Samson and take him as our prisoner. We need to punish him in the same way that he has punished us.’
11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave where Samson was hiding. They said to him, ‘You know that the Philistines are our rulers. You are causing them to give us trouble.’
Samson said, ‘I have only done to them as they did to me.’
12 The men of Judah said to him, ‘We have come to tie you up as our prisoner. We must let the Philistines take you away.’
Samson said, ‘Promise me that you will not kill me yourselves.’
13 They said, ‘We agree. We will only tie you up and give you to them. We promise that we will not kill you.’
So they tied him up with two new ropes. They took him with them away from the cave.
14 When they arrived at Lehi, the Philistine soldiers shouted happily as they came towards him. But the Lord's Spirit gave Samson great strength. The ropes that tied his arms broke in pieces. They seemed as weak as grass that burns in a fire. They fell from his hands. 15 He saw a bone from the skull of a donkey that had just died. He picked it up and he used it to kill 1,000 Philistine soldiers.
16 Then Samson sang this song:
‘I have used a donkey's skull to kill 1,000 men.
I have made them like many heaps of dead donkeys!’
17 After that, he threw away the bone from the donkey's skull. So people called that place ‘Ramath Lehi’.[e]
18 Samson was now very thirsty. He called out to the Lord for help. He said, ‘You have helped me to win a great battle. Should I now die because I am so thirsty? Then these Philistines would do whatever they want to me.’
19 So God caused a hole to open in the ground near Lehi. Water poured out of it. Samson drank some water and he became strong again. Samson called the spring of water ‘En Hakkore’.[f] It is still there in Lehi.
20 Samson led Israel for 20 years while the Philistines continued to rule the land.
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