Judges 15

Samson Burns the Philistine Fields

1After some days, during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat. He said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2Her father said, “I truly thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.” 3Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent regarding the Philistines when I do harm to them.” 4Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, took torches, turned tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5When he had set the torches on fire, he released them into the standing grain of the Philistines and burned up both the stacked grain and standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

The Philistines Burn Samson’s Wife

6The Philistines said, “Who did this?” They were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took Samson’s wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire. 7Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I will surely take vengeance on you, and after that I will stop.” 8He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter, then went down and lived in a cleft of the rock of Etam.

Judah Hands Samson Over

9Then the Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and spread out at Lehi. 10The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.” 11Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What then is this you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hand of the Philistines.” Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not strike me.” 13They said to him, “No, but we will bind you securely and give you into their hand. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

The Jawbone at Lehi

14When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax burned with fire, and his bonds melted from his hands. 15He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck one thousand men with it. 16Samson said:

“With the jawbone of a donkey,
heap upon heaps;
with the jawbone of a donkey
I struck one thousand men.” 17When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand and called that place Ramath-Lehi.

Samson Cries Out for Water

18Then he became very thirsty and called to the LORD, saying, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” 19God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. When he drank, his spirit returned and he revived. Therefore its name was called En-Hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. 20And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.