The Daily Audio Bible

15 Some time later Samson went to visit his wife during the wheat harvest and took her a young goat. He told her father, “I want to go to my wife's room.”

But he wouldn't let him go in. ² He told Samson, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your friend. But her younger sister is prettier, anyway. You can have her, instead.”

³ Samson said, “This time I'm not going to be responsible for what I do to the Philistines!” ⁴ So he went and caught three hundred foxes. Two at a time, he tied their tails together and put torches in the knots. ⁵ Then he set fire to the torches and turned the foxes loose in the Philistine wheat fields. In this way he burned up not only the wheat that had been harvested but also the wheat that was still in the fields. The olive orchards were also burned. ⁶ When the Philistines asked who had done this, they learned that Samson had done it because his father-in-law, a man from Timnah, had given Samson's wife to a friend of Samson's. So the Philistines went and burned the woman to death and burned down her father's house.^[a]

⁷ Samson told them, “So this is how you act! I swear that I won't stop until I pay you back!” ⁸ He attacked them fiercely and killed many of them. Then he went and stayed in the cave in the cliff at Etam.

Samson Defeats the Philistines

⁹ The Philistines came and camped in Judah, and attacked the town of Lehi. ¹⁰ The men of Judah asked them, “Why are you attacking us?”

They answered, “We came to take Samson prisoner and to treat him as he treated us.” ¹¹ So these three thousand men of Judah went to the cave in the cliff at Etam and said to Samson, “Don't you know that the Philistines are our rulers? What have you done to us?”

He answered, “I did to them just what they did to me.”

¹² They told him, “We have come here to tie you up, so we can hand you over to them.”

Samson said, “Give me your word that you won't kill me yourselves.”

¹³ “All right,” they said, “we are only going to tie you up and hand you over to them. We won't kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him back from the cliff.

¹⁴ When he got to Lehi, the Philistines came running toward him, shouting at him. Suddenly the power of the Lord made him strong, and he broke the ropes around his arms and hands as if they were burnt thread. ¹⁵ Then he found a jawbone of a donkey that had recently died. He reached down and picked it up, and killed a thousand men with it. ¹⁶ So Samson sang,

¹⁷ After that, he threw the jawbone away. The place where this happened was named Ramath Lehi.^[c]

¹⁸ Then Samson became very thirsty, so he called to the Lord and said, “You gave me this great victory; am I now going to die of thirst and be captured by these heathen Philistines?” ¹⁹ Then God opened a hollow place in the ground there at Lehi, and water came out of it. Samson drank it and began to feel much better. So the spring was named Hakkore;^[d] it is still there at Lehi.

²⁰ Samson led Israel for twenty years while the Philistines ruled the land.

Samson at Gaza

16 One day Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza, where he met a prostitute and went to bed with her. ² The people of Gaza found out that Samson was there, so they surrounded the place and waited for him all night long at the city gate. They were quiet all night, thinking to themselves, “We'll wait until daybreak, and then we'll kill him.” ³ But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up and took hold of the city gate and pulled it up—doors, posts, lock, and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them far off to the top of the hill overlooking Hebron.

Samson and Delilah

⁴ After this, Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in Sorek Valley. ⁵ The five Philistine kings went to her and said, “Trick Samson into telling you why he is so strong and how we can overpower him, tie him up, and make him helpless. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes you so strong. If someone wanted to tie you up and make you helpless, how could he do it?”

⁷ Samson answered, “If they tie me up with seven new bowstrings that are not dried out, I'll be as weak as anybody else.”

⁸ So the Philistine kings brought Delilah seven new bowstrings that were not dried out, and she tied Samson up. ⁹ She had some men waiting in another room, so she shouted, “Samson! The Philistines are coming!” But he snapped the bowstrings just as thread breaks when fire touches it. So they still did not know the secret of his strength.

¹⁰ Delilah told Samson, “Look, you've been making a fool of me and not telling me the truth. Please tell me how someone could tie you up.”

¹¹ He told her, “If they tie me with new ropes that have never been used, I'll be as weak as anybody else.”

¹² So Delilah got some new ropes and tied him up. Then she shouted, “Samson! The Philistines are coming!” The men were waiting in another room. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like thread.

¹³ Delilah said to Samson, “You're still making a fool of me and not telling me the truth. Tell me how someone could tie you up.”

He told her, “If you weave my seven locks of hair into a loom, and make it tight with a peg, I'll be as weak as anybody else.”

¹⁴ Delilah then lulled him to sleep, took his seven locks of hair, and wove them into the loom.^[e] She made it tight with a peg and shouted, “Samson! The Philistines are coming!” But he woke up and pulled his hair loose from the loom.

¹⁵ So she said to him, “How can you say you love me, when you don't mean it? You've made a fool of me three times, and you still haven't told me what makes you so strong.” ¹⁶ She kept on asking him, day after day. He got so sick and tired of her bothering him about it ¹⁷ that he finally told her the truth. “My hair has never been cut,” he said. “I have been dedicated to God as a nazirite^[f] from the time I was born. If my hair were cut, I would lose my strength and be as weak as anybody else.”

¹⁸ When Delilah realized that he had told her the truth, she sent a message to the Philistine kings and said, “Come back one more time. He has told me the truth.” Then they came and brought the money with them. ¹⁹ Delilah lulled Samson to sleep in her lap and then called a man, who cut off^[g] Samson's seven locks of hair. Then she began to torment him, for he had lost his strength. ²⁰ Then she shouted, “Samson! The Philistines are coming!” He woke up and thought, “I'll get loose and go free, as always.” He did not know that the Lord had left him. ²¹ The Philistines captured him and put his eyes out. They took him to Gaza, chained him with bronze chains, and put him to work grinding at the mill in the prison. ²² But his hair started growing back.

The Death of Samson

²³ The Philistine kings met together to celebrate and offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They sang, “Our god has given us victory over our enemy Samson!” ^24-25 They were enjoying themselves, and so they said, “Call Samson, and let's make him entertain us!”^[h] When they brought Samson out of the prison, they made him entertain them^[i] and made him stand between the columns. When the people saw him, they sang praise to their god: “Our god has given us victory over our enemy, who devastated our land and killed so many of us!” ²⁶ Samson said to the boy who was leading him by the hand, “Let me touch the columns that hold up the building. I want to lean on them.” ²⁷ The building was crowded with men and women. All five Philistine kings were there, and there were about three thousand men and women on the roof, watching Samson entertain them.^[j]

²⁸ Then Samson prayed, “Sovereign Lord, please remember me; please, God, give me my strength just this one time more, so that with this one blow I can get even with the Philistines for putting out my two eyes.” ²⁹ So Samson took hold of the two middle columns holding up the building. Putting one hand on each column, he pushed against them ³⁰ and shouted, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He pushed with all his might, and the building fell down on the five kings and everyone else. Samson killed more people at his death than he had killed during his life.

³¹ His brothers and the rest of his family came down to get his body. They took him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. He had been Israel's leader for twenty years.

The Wedding in Cana

2 Two days later there was a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine had given out, Jesus' mother said to him, “They are out of wine.”

⁴ “You must not tell me what to do,” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

⁵ Jesus' mother then told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ The Jews have rules about ritual washing, and for this purpose six stone water jars were there, each one large enough to hold between twenty and thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill these jars with water.” They filled them to the brim, ⁸ and then he told them, “Now draw some water out and take it to the man in charge of the feast.” They took him the water, ⁹ which now had turned into wine, and he tasted it. He did not know where this wine had come from (but, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew); so he called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone else serves the best wine first, and after the guests have drunk a lot, he serves the ordinary wine. But you have kept the best wine until now!”

¹¹ Jesus performed this first miracle in Cana in Galilee; there he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

^12 (A)After this, Jesus and his mother, brothers, and disciples went to Capernaum and stayed there a few days.

Jesus Goes to the Temple^(B)

^13 (C)It was almost time for the Passover Festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ There in the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and pigeons, and also the moneychangers sitting at their tables. ¹⁵ So he made a whip from cords and drove all the animals out of the Temple, both the sheep and the cattle; he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins; ¹⁶ and he ordered those who sold the pigeons, “Take them out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!” ^17 (D)His disciples remembered that the scripture says, “My devotion to your house, O God, burns in me like a fire.”

¹⁸ The Jewish authorities came back at him with a question, “What miracle can you perform to show us that you have the right to do this?”

^19 (E)Jesus answered, “Tear down this Temple, and in three days I will build it again.”

²⁰ “Are you going to build it again in three days?” they asked him. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple!”

²¹ But the temple Jesus was speaking about was his body. ²² So when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what Jesus had said.

Jesus' Knowledge of Human Nature

²³ While Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in him as they saw the miracles he performed. ²⁴ But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew them all. ²⁵ There was no need for anyone to tell him about them, because he himself knew what was in their hearts.

The Love of God^[a]

¹⁷ People with a hot temper do foolish things; wiser people remain calm.^[a]

¹⁸ Ignorant people get what their foolishness deserves, but the clever are rewarded with knowledge.

¹⁹ Evil people will have to bow down to the righteous and humbly beg their favor.