Old/New Testament

Chapter 13

The Birth of Samson. ^1 (A)The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, who therefore delivered them into the power of the Philistines for forty years.

² There was a certain man from Zorah, of the clan of the Danites,^[a] whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren and had borne no children.^{(B) 3 (C)}An angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her: Though you are barren and have had no children, you will conceive and bear a son. ^4 (D)Now, then, be careful to drink no wine or beer and to eat nothing unclean, ⁵ for you will conceive and bear a son. No razor shall touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite for God^[b] from the womb. It is he who will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines.

⁶ The woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me; he had the appearance of an angel of God, fearsome indeed. I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. ⁷ But he said to me, ‘You will conceive and bear a son. So drink no wine or beer, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be a nazirite for God from the womb, until the day of his death.’” ⁸ Manoah then prayed to the Lord. “Please, my Lord,” he said, “may the man of God whom you sent return to us to teach us what to do for the boy who is to be born.”

⁹ God heard the prayer of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. ¹⁰ The woman ran quickly and told her husband. “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me,” she said to him; ¹¹ so Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he reached the man, he said to him, “Are you the one who spoke to my wife?” I am, he answered. ¹² Then Manoah asked, “Now, when what you say comes true, what rules must the boy follow? What must he do?” ¹³ The angel of the Lord answered Manoah: Your wife must be careful about all the things of which I spoke to her. ¹⁴ She must not eat anything that comes from the vine, she must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat anything unclean. Let her observe all that I have commanded her. ¹⁵ Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Permit us to detain you, so that we may prepare a young goat for you.” ¹⁶ But the angel of the Lord answered Manoah: Though you detained me, I would not eat your food. But if you want to prepare a burnt offering, then offer it up to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord. ^17 [c]Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, that we may honor you when your words come true?” ^18 (E)The angel of the Lord answered him: Why do you ask my name? It is wondrous. ^19 (F)Then Manoah took a young goat with a grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord, who works wonders. While Manoah and his wife were looking on, ²⁰ as the flame rose to the heavens from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground; ²¹ but the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife.^(G) Then Manoah, realizing that it was the angel of the Lord, ²² said to his wife, “We will certainly die,^[d] for we have seen God.” ²³ But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands! Nor would he have let us see all this, or hear what we have heard.”

²⁴ The woman bore a son and named him Samson, and when the boy grew up the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ The spirit of the Lord came upon him for the first time^(H) in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Chapter 14

Marriage of Samson. ¹ Samson went down to Timnah where he saw one of the Philistine women. ² On his return he told his father and mother, “I saw in Timnah a woman, a Philistine. Get her for me as a wife.” ^3 (I)His father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among your kinsfolk or among all your people, that you must go and take a woman from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson answered his father, “Get her for me, for she is the one I want.” ^4 (J)Now his father and mother did not know that this had been brought about by the Lord, who was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines;^[e] for at that time they ruled over Israel.^(K)

⁵ So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. When he turned aside to the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion came roaring out toward him. ^6 (L)But the spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and he tore the lion apart barehanded,^(M) as one tears a young goat. Without telling his father or mother what he had done, ⁷ he went down and spoke to the woman. He liked her. ⁸ Later, when he came back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the remains of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the lion’s carcass, and honey. ⁹ So he scooped the honey out into his hands and ate it as he went along. When he came to his father and mother, he gave them some to eat, but he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion’s carcass.

¹⁰ His father also went down to the woman, and Samson gave a feast there, since it was customary for the young men to do this. ¹¹ Out of their fear of him, they brought thirty men to be his companions. ¹² Samson said to them, “Let me propose a riddle to you. If within the seven days of the feast you solve it for me, I will give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of garments. ¹³ But if you cannot answer it for me, you must give me thirty tunics and thirty sets of garments.” “Propose your riddle,” they responded, “and we will listen to it.” ¹⁴ So he said to them,

For three days they were unable to answer the riddle, ¹⁵ and on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife,^(N) “Trick your husband into solving the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your family.^(O) Did you invite us here to reduce us to poverty?” ^16 [f](P)So Samson’s wife wept at his side and said, “You just hate me! You do not love me! You proposed a riddle to my people, but did not tell me the answer.” He said to her, “If I did not tell even my father or my mother, must I tell you?” ¹⁷ But she wept beside him during the seven days the feast lasted, and on the seventh day, he told her the answer, because she pressed him, and she explained the riddle to her people.^(Q)

¹⁸ On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him,

He replied to them,

^19 (R)The spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty of their men and stripped them; he gave their garments to those who had answered the riddle. Then he went off to his own family in anger, ²⁰ and Samson’s wife was married to the companion who had been his best man.^(S)

Chapter 15

Samson Defeats the Philistines. ¹ After some time, in the season of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing a young goat. But when he said, “Let me go into my wife’s room,” her father would not let him go in. ² He said, “I thought you hated her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is better; you may have her instead.” ³ Samson said to him, “This time I am guiltless if I harm the Philistines.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and turning them tail to tail, he took some torches and tied one between each pair of tails. ⁵ He then kindled the torches and set the jackals loose in the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning both the shocks and standing grain, the vineyards and olive groves.

^6 (T)When the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” they were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because his wife was taken and given to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and destroyed her and her family by fire.^{(U) 7} Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ And he struck them hip and thigh—a great slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cleft of the crag of Etam.

⁹ The Philistines went up and encamped in Judah, deploying themselves against Lehi.^{(V) 10} When the men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?” they answered, “To take Samson prisoner; to do to him as he has done to us.” ¹¹ Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the crag of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are our rulers? Why, then, have you done this to us?” He answered them, “As they have done to me, so have I done to them.” ¹² They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and deliver you to the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” ¹³ “No,” they replied, “we will only bind you and hand you over to them. We will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the crag. ¹⁴ When he reached Lehi, and the Philistines came shouting to meet him,^(W) the spirit of the Lord rushed upon him: the ropes around his arms became like flax that is consumed by fire, and his bonds melted away from his hands. ¹⁵ Coming upon the fresh jawbone of an ass, he reached out, grasped it, and with it killed a thousand men.^{(X) 16} Then Samson said,

¹⁷ As he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from him; and so that place was named Ramath-lehi.^{[g] 18} Being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord and said, “You have put this great victory into the hand of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ Then God split the cavity in Lehi, and water issued from it, and Samson drank till his spirit returned and he revived. Hence it is called En-hakkore^[h] in Lehi to this day.

²⁰ Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.^(Y)

^27 (A)“But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,^{(B) 28} bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.^{(C) 29} To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.^{(D) 32} For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. ³⁴ If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit [is] that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.^{(E) 35} But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.^{(F) 36} Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful.

Judging Others.^{[a] 37 (G)}“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.^{(H) 38} Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”^{(I) 39} And he told them a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?^{(J) 40} No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.^{(K) 41} Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.

A Tree Known by Its Fruit.^{(L) 43 [b]}“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. ⁴⁴ For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. ⁴⁵ A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.

The Two Foundations. ^46 (M)“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? ^47 [c]I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them.^{(N) 48} That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”