The Daily Audio Bible

Chapter 15

Samson’s Revenge on the Philistines. ¹ Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing her a kid goat. He said, “I am going in to my wife’s room,” but her father would not let him go in. ² The father said, “I was so sure that you hated her that I gave her to your friend. Her younger sister is prettier than she is. Please, take her instead.” ³ But Samson said to them, “It is no longer my fault if I harm the Philistines.”

⁴ Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He tied them together, tail to tail. He then fastened a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ He set the torches on fire and let them go into the Philistine’s standing grain. It burned up both the standing grain and the stacks of grain, as well as the vineyards and the olive orchards.

⁶ When the Philistines asked, “Who did this,” they were told, “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite. He did it because they took his wife and gave her to his friend.” The Philistines therefore went and burned her and her father to death. ⁷ Samson said to them, “Because you have done this, I will never stop getting my vengeance on you.” ⁸ He struck them ruthlessly, slaughtering many of them. He then went down and dwelt in a fissure of the rock of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. ¹⁰ The Judahites asked, “Why have you come to fight against us?” They answered, “To take Samson prisoner so that we can do to him what he did to us.” ¹¹ Three thousand men from Judah went down to the fissure of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Did you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I just did to them what they did to me.” ¹² They said to him, “We have come to take you prisoner and to deliver you over to the Philistines.” He said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.” ¹³ They said, “No, but we will tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.

¹⁴ As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. The ropes that were around his arms became like charred flax, and the binding fell off of his hands.

¹⁵ He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and he reached out and took it in his hand. He then killed one thousand men with it. ¹⁶ Samson said,

¹⁷ When he finished speaking, he dropped the jawbone from out of his hand. The name of that place is Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸ Now he was very thirsty, so he called out to the Lord, “You have given this great victory through the hand of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”^{[a] 19} God split open a hollow place in Lehi, and water came out. When he drank it, his strength returned and his spirit was revived. The spring is called En-hakkore, and it is still in Lehi today. ²⁰ Samson was a judge over Israel for forty years during the days of the Philistines.

Chapter 16

Samson at Gaza. ¹ One day Samson went to Gaza. He saw a prostitute there, and he had sex with her. ² The people in Gaza were told, “Samson is here.” They surrounded the place where he was staying, and they lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, saying, “In the morning we will kill him.” ³ Samson lay there until midnight, and then at midnight he got up and took hold of the city gates with its two posts. He lifted up the gates, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

Samson and Delilah. ⁴ Sometime later he fell in love with a woman who lived in the Valley of Sorek. Her name was Delilah. ⁵ The lords of the Philistines visited her and said, “Entice him and see if you can find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him and tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

⁶ Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me the source of your great strength and how you could be tied up and subdued.” ⁷ Samson answered her, “If anyone were to tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have never been dried, then I would become as weak as everyone else.” ⁸ The lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them. ⁹ There were some men hiding in the room when she cried out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you.” He broke the thongs like a piece of string that snaps when it is close to a flame. Thus, the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ Delilah then said to Samson, “You have mocked me and lied to me. Please, tell me now how you could be tied up.” ¹¹ He answered, “If anyone were to bind me with new ropes that had never been used, then I would become as weak as everyone else.” ¹² So Delilah took new ropes and she bound him and cried out, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you,” as the men were hiding in the room. He broke them off of his arms as if they were made of thread.

¹³ Delilah then said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and lied to me. Tell me, now, how you could be tied up.” He answered, “If you were to weave the seven locks on my head into the loom, ¹⁴ and fastened it with a pin, then I should become weak, and be like any other man.” Again she cried out, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you.” He woke up from his sleep and pulled away from the pin, the loom, and the web.

¹⁵ She said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you hold back your love from me. You have mocked me these three times; you have not told me where your strength lies.” ¹⁶ She wore him out by talking to him day after day, and nagging him, until he was tired to death, ¹⁷ so he told her everything. He said to her, “No razor has ever touched my head because I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother’s womb. If I were to be shaved, then my strength would disappear and I would become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸ When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she summoned the lords of the Philistines saying, “Come back one more time, for he has told me everything.” The lords of the Philistines came to her, the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She had him fall asleep upon her knees, and she summoned a man to shave off the seven locks on his head. Thus, she began to subdue him, and his strength left him. ²⁰ She cried out, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you.” He woke up from his sleep and said, “I will go out like the previous times and shake myself free.” He did not know that the Lord had left him.^[b]

²¹ The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They took him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze shackles, setting him to grind grain in prison.

²² Samson’s Revenge and Death. The hair on his head began to grow back after it had been shaved off. ²³ The lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon.^[c] They celebrated and said, “Our god has delivered us from the hands of Samson, our enemy.” ²⁴ When the people saw him, they praised their god saying, “Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste to our country and killed so many of us.” ²⁵ While they were in high spirits, they cried out, “Call out Samson so that he can entertain us.” They summoned Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They set him between the pillars. ²⁶ Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the temple is set so I can lean against them.” ²⁷ The temple was packed with men and women, and all of the lords of the Philistines were there as well. There were also about three thousand men and women upon the roof, watching while Samson was amusing them.

²⁸ Samson called out to the Lord and said, “O Lord, please remember me. I beg you, please strengthen me^[d] this one more time so that I might take vengeance upon the Philistines for my two eyes.”

²⁹ Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the temple was set. He braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left hand. ³⁰ Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the house came crashing down upon the lords and upon all of the people. Thus, he killed more people with his death than he had killed during his life. ³¹ His brothers and all of his father’s household went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He was a judge over Israel for twenty years.

The First Sign Worked by Jesus

Chapter 2

The Wedding Feast at Cana.^{[a] 1} On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana^[b] in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited. ³ When the wine was exhausted, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ Jesus responded, “Woman,^[c] what concern is this to us? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ Now standing nearby there were six stone water jars, of the type used for Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus instructed the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” When they had filled them to the brim, ⁸ he ordered them, “Now draw some out and take it to the chief steward,” and they did so.

⁹ When the chief steward tasted the water that had become wine, he did not know where it came from, although the servants who had drawn the water knew. The chief steward called over the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone serves the choice wine first, and then an inferior vintage when the guests have been drinking for a while. However, you have saved the best wine until now.”^[d]

¹¹ Jesus performed this, the first of his signs,^[e] at Cana in Galilee, thereby revealing his glory, and his disciples believed in him. ¹² After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brethren,^[f] and his disciples, and they remained there for a few days.

Worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth^[g]

The Mystery of the New Temple

Jesus Casts the Merchants Out of the Temple.^[h]13 When the time of the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵ Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, including the sheep and the cattle. He also overturned the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins, ¹⁶ and to those who were selling the doves he ordered, “Take them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” ¹⁷ His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ The Jews then challenged him, “What sign can you show us to justify your doing this?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews responded, “This temple has taken forty-six years to build, and you are going to raise it up in three days!” ²¹ But the temple he was talking about was the temple of his body. ²² After he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

The Mystery of the New Covenant

²³ Jesus in Jerusalem.^[i]While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many people saw the signs he was performing and came to believe in his name. ²⁴ However, Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he fully understood them all. ²⁵ He did not need evidence from others about man, for he clearly understood men.

Psalm 103^[a]

Praise of God’s Providence

¹ Of David.