| Chapter
15 |
| 1 | But it
came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson
visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the
chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in. |
| 2 | And her father said, I verily thought
that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to thy companion: is
not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of
her. |
| 3 | And Samson said
concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I
do them a displeasure. |
| 4 |
And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned
tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. |
| 5 | And when he had set the brands on
fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up
both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives. |
| 6 | Then the Philistines said,
Who hath done this? And they answered, Samson, the son in law of the Timnite,
because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And the
Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire. |
| 7 | And Samson said unto them, Though ye
have done this, yet will I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease. |
| 8 | And he smote them hip and
thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock
Etam. |
| 9 | Then the
Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi. |
| 10 | And the men of Judah
said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we
come up, to do to him as he hath done to us. |
| 11 | Then three thousand men of Judah went to the top of the
rock Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers
over us? what is this that thou hast done unto us? And he said unto them, As
they did unto me, so have I done unto them. |
| 12 | And they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee,
that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto
them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves. |
| 13 | And they spake unto him, saying, No;
but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand: but surely we
will not kill thee. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up
from the rock. |
| 14 | And
when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of
the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became
as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. |
| 15 | And he found a new
jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men
therewith. |
| 16 | And Samson
said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have
I slain a thousand men. |
| 17 |
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away
the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramathlehi. |
| 18 | And he was sore athirst, and called on
the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy
servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the
uncircumcised? |
| 19 | But
God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout;
and when he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: wherefore he
called the name thereof Enhakkore, which is in Lehi unto this day. |
| 20 | And he judged Israel in the days
of the Philistines twenty years. |
