Judges 15

₁Later when people started harvesting wheat, Samson went to visit his wife. He took a young goat for her and he told her father: ‘I want to go to my wife, in her room.’ But her father said that he could not go in. ₂Her father said: ‘You went away and I thought you did not want her as your wife. Then I gave her to one of the men who came with you to the wedding feast. Her younger sister is more beautiful and you can marry her.’ ₃Samson said: ‘No. Now I will make the Philistines suffer because of this and it will not be my fault.’

₄Then Samson caught 300 foxes. He took 2 foxes at a time and he tied the tails of each pair together and he tied a torch between the tails of each pair. ₅He set fire to the torches and he let the foxes run into the wheat_fields of the Philistines. All the wheat, the vineyards and olive trees burnt down. ₆The Philistines asked: ‘Who did this?’ And the people said: ‘It was Samson, the son-in-law of the man in Timna. He did it because his father-in-law gave his wife to another man who was with him at the feast.’

The Philistines went to Samson's father-in-law and they burnt and killed the woman and her father. ₇Then Samson said to them: ‘You have done a very bad thing to me. Now I will do bad things to you and I will not stop.’

₈Samson killed many Philistines and he went into the mountains and lived in the Etam Valley.

₉The Philistine soldiers put up their tents in the land_of_Judah and they came to the town of Lehi. ₁₀The people of Judah asked the Philistines: ‘Why do you want to go to war_against us?’ The Philistines said: ‘We came to catch Samson. We want to do to him what he did to us.’

₁₁Then 3 000 men of Judah went to the Etam Valley and said to Samson: ‘You know that the Philistines rule over us. Why did you make so many problems for us?’ Samson said to them: ‘I did to the Philistines what they did to me.’ ₁₂They said to Samson: ‘We came to tie you and give you to the Philistines.’ Samson said to them: ‘You must first promise me that you will not attack me.’ ₁₃They said: ‘No, we do not want to kill you. We just want to tie you and give you to the Philistines.’

They tied Samson with 2 new ropes and asked him to go with them. ₁₄When they got near the town of Lehi with Samson, the Philistines came to them and they shouted and attacked Samson. The Spirit_of_the_Lord made Samson strong. He broke the ropes on his arms easily. The ropes were like grass that had burnt and they fell from his arms. ₁₅Samson took the fresh jaw-bone of a donkey and he killed 1 000 Philistines with it. ₁₆Then Samson said:

₁₇After this Samson threw away the jaw-bone and he named the place Jaw-bone-hill. ₁₈He was very thirsty and he prayed to the Lord and said: ‘You have helped me win this war. Do You want me to die now because I do not have water? Do You want the Philistines to come and take me? The Philistines are not your people.’ ₁₉The Lord made a hole in the rock near the town of Lehi and water came out of it. Samson drank the water and he was strong again. That fountain is still there in Lehi. The people named it En-Hakkore.

₂₀Samson was the leader of the Israelites for 20 years in the time when the Philistines ruled over them.