Samson’s Revenge

1Later on, during the wheat harvest,a Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

2“I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead? ”

3Samson said to them, “This time I won’t be responsibleb when I harm the Philistines.” 4So he went out and caught 300 foxes.c He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.d

6Then the Philistines asked, “Who did this? ”

They were told, “It was Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to another man.” So the Philistines went to her and her father and burned them to death.

7Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.” 8He tore them limb from limbe with a great slaughter, and he went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

9The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi. 10So the men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us? ”

They replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he did to us.”

11Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines rule over us?f What have you done to us? ”

“I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.g

12They said to him, “We’ve come to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”

13“No,” they said,h “we won’t kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they tied him up with two new ropesi and led him away from the rock.

14When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD took control ofj him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like burnt flax and his bonds fell off his wrists. 15He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed 1,000 men with it. 16Then Samson said:

With the jawbone of a donkey

I have piled them in a heap.

With the jawbone of a donkey

I have killed 1,000 men.

17When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Ramath-lehi.k 18He became very thirsty and called out to the LORD: “You have accomplished this great victory throughl Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? ” 19So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived.m That is why he named it En-hakkore,n which is in Lehi to this day. 20And he judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines.