Judges 13:2-16:31

EasyEnglish Bible

² There was a man who belonged to Dan's tribe. His name was Manoah and he lived in Zorah. His wife had no children and she could not give birth. ³ The Lord's angel appeared to her. He said, ‘You have not been able to give birth to any children until now. But you will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. ⁴ You must not drink any wine or any beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. ⁵ Yes, you will give birth to a son. You must never cut the boy's hair. He is to be a Nazirite.^[a] He will belong to God from the time that he is born. He will begin to rescue the Israelites from the power of the Philistines.’

⁶ The woman went quickly to tell her husband. She said, ‘A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel that God had sent with a message. I was afraid of him. I did not ask where he came from. He did not tell me his name. ⁷ He said to me, “You will become pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You must not drink any wine or beer. You must not eat any food that is unclean. The boy will belong to me as a Nazirite from his birth until the day that he dies!” ’

⁸ Manoah prayed to the Lord, ‘Lord, please send the man of God to come to us again. Let him teach us how we should take care of this boy who will be born.’

⁹ God did what Manoah had asked. The angel came again to visit Manoah's wife. She was resting in the fields and her husband was not with her. ¹⁰ She ran to tell her husband, ‘Come quickly! The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again!’

¹¹ Manoah got up and he followed his wife. When he met the man, he asked him, ‘Are you the man who talked to my wife?’ The man said, ‘Yes, I am.’

¹² Then Manoah asked him, ‘When what you promised happens, how should the boy live? What kind of work will he do?’

¹³ The Lord's angel answered, ‘Your wife must be careful to do everything that I told her. ¹⁴ She must not eat anything that comes from vines.^[b] She must not drink wine or beer. She must not eat any food that is unclean. She must obey everything that I have commanded her to do.’

¹⁵ Manoah said to the Lord's angel, ‘Please stay here with us. We would like to cook a young goat for you to eat.’

¹⁶ The angel replied, ‘Even if I stay with you, I will not eat your food. But you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.’ The angel said that because Manoah had not realized that he was the Lord's angel.

¹⁷ Then Manoah asked the Lord's angel, ‘What is your name? When what you have promised happens, we will want to give you honour.’ ¹⁸ The angel replied, ‘You should not ask what my name is. It is too great for you to understand.’

¹⁹ Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering. He offered them on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord surprised them with a miracle. ²⁰ As the flames of fire rose up from the sacrifice to the sky, the Lord's angel went up in the flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell down with their faces towards the ground.

²¹ The Lord's angel did not appear to them again. Manoah then realized that their visitor was the Lord's own angel. ²² He said to his wife, ‘We are sure to die! We have seen God!’

²³ But his wife said to him, ‘The Lord accepted our burnt offering and our grain offering. He would not have done that if he wanted to kill us. He would not have shown us all these great things. He would not have told us about what will happen to us.’

²⁴ Manoah's wife gave birth to a son. She gave him the name ‘Samson’. The child grew to become a man, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ The Lord's Spirit began to give Samson strength when he was living in Mahaneh Dan. That place was between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Samson marries a Philistine woman

14 One day Samson went to Timnah. Samson saw a young Philistine woman. ² When he returned home, he said to his father and mother, ‘I have seen a young Philistine woman in Timnah and I want to marry her. Please get her for me as my wife.’

³ His parents replied, ‘You do not need to go to the Philistines to get a wife. They are not the Lord's people. There is surely someone among our own relatives or other Israelites that you would like to marry.’ But Samson said to his father, ‘You must get her for me. She is the right girl for me to marry.’

⁴ Samson's parents did not realize that the Lord was causing this to happen. The Lord wanted to prepare a way for the Israelites to attack the Philistines, because the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time.

⁵ Samson went to Timnah, and his parents went too. When he reached some vineyards near Timnah, an angry young lion ran out to attack him. ⁶ The Lord's Spirit gave Samson great strength. He tore the lion into pieces with his hands. He made it seem very easy, as if he was killing a goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

⁷ Then Samson continued on his journey to Timnah. He spoke with the young woman, and she pleased him very much.

⁸ Some time later, Samson returned to Timnah to marry the young woman. He turned off the path to look at the lion's body. Inside it, there was a crowd of bees and some honey. ⁹ He took the honey out with his hands. He ate it as he walked along. Then he went to his parents. He gave some of the honey to them and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken it from the body of the dead lion.

¹⁰ Then Samson's father went to Timnah for Samson's marriage. Samson prepared a party for the people there. All the young men did this when they married. ¹¹ When the Philistines saw what Samson was doing, they sent 30 young men to be his friends. ¹² Samson said to them, ‘Listen to this clever question. Try to give me an answer before my party finishes in seven days. If you answer the question, I will give you 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes. ¹³ But if you cannot tell me the answer, you will give me 30 linen shirts and 30 sets of clothes.’ The young men said, ‘Tell us your question.’^[c]

¹⁴ Samson said to them:

After three days, the Philistine men could not find the answer.

¹⁵ On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, ‘Find a way to make your husband tell you the answer. If you do not, we will use fire to destroy your father's house, with you inside it! Did you ask us to come to your marriage party to make us poor?’

¹⁶ Then Samson's wife went to him and she wept. She said to him, ‘It seems that you hate me. You do not really love me. You have asked my friends a clever question, but you have not told me the answer.’

Samson said to her, ‘I have not told the answer even to my father or mother. So why should I tell you?’

¹⁷ Samson's wife continued to weep like that all the days of the party. Finally, she gave him so much trouble that he told her the answer on the seventh day. Then she told the young men the answer to Samson's question.

¹⁸ Before sunset on the seventh day, the men of the town gave their answer to Samson:

Samson said to them, ‘You have used my young cow to do your work! Without her you would not have found the answer to my question.’

¹⁹ The Lord's Spirit took hold of Samson. He went to Ashkelon and he killed 30 Philistine men there. He took all their clothes and he gave them to the 30 men who had answered his question. He was still very angry as he went back to his family's home.

²⁰ Samson's wife became the wife of the man who had been his special friend at the party.

Samson fights against the Philistines

15 Later, Samson went to visit his wife at the time of the wheat harvest. He took a young goat with him as a gift. He said to her father, ‘I am going into my wife's room to sleep with her.’ But her father stopped him. ² He said, ‘I was sure that you hated my daughter. So I have given her to your special friend to be his wife. Look at her younger sister. She is more beautiful. Take her as your wife, instead.’

³ Samson said, ‘This time I will not be guilty when I punish the Philistines!’

⁴ So he went out and he caught 300 foxes. He tied the foxes in pairs by their tails. He tied some dry grass to each pair of tails. ⁵ Then he lit the grass with fire. He made the foxes run through the fields where the wheat was growing. The fire destroyed all the Philistines' crops, whether they had already cut it down or not. The fire also destroyed their vines and their olive trees.

⁶ The Philistines asked, ‘Who did this?’ People said to them, ‘It was Samson, the man who married the young woman in Timnah. He did it because her father gave her to Samson's special friend instead of Samson.’

So the Philistines went and burned the man and his daughter to death. ⁷ Samson said to them, ‘Because you have done this, I will punish you. I will not stop until your punishment is complete.’ ⁸ He attacked them with great strength. He killed many of them.

After that, Samson went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹ The Philistine army went to attack Judah.^[d] They made their camp near Lehi and they prepared to fight. ¹⁰ The men of Judah asked them, ‘Why have you come to attack us?’ The Philistines replied, ‘We have come to catch Samson and take him as our prisoner. We need to punish him in the same way that he has punished us.’

¹¹ Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave where Samson was hiding. They said to him, ‘You know that the Philistines are our rulers. You are causing them to give us trouble.’

Samson said, ‘I have only done to them as they did to me.’

¹² The men of Judah said to him, ‘We have come to tie you up as our prisoner. We must let the Philistines take you away.’

Samson said, ‘Promise me that you will not kill me yourselves.’

¹³ They said, ‘We agree. We will only tie you up and give you to them. We promise that we will not kill you.’

So they tied him up with two new ropes. They took him with them away from the cave.

¹⁴ When they arrived at Lehi, the Philistine soldiers shouted happily as they came towards him. But the Lord's Spirit gave Samson great strength. The ropes that tied his arms broke in pieces. They seemed as weak as grass that burns in a fire. They fell from his hands. ¹⁵ He saw a bone from the skull of a donkey that had just died. He picked it up and he used it to kill 1,000 Philistine soldiers.

¹⁶ Then Samson sang this song:

¹⁷ After that, he threw away the bone from the donkey's skull. So people called that place ‘Ramath Lehi’.^[e]

¹⁸ Samson was now very thirsty. He called out to the Lord for help. He said, ‘You have helped me to win a great battle. Should I now die because I am so thirsty? Then these Philistines would do whatever they want to me.’

¹⁹ So God caused a hole to open in the ground near Lehi. Water poured out of it. Samson drank some water and he became strong again. Samson called the spring of water ‘En Hakkore’.^[f] It is still there in Lehi.

²⁰ Samson led Israel for 20 years while the Philistines continued to rule the land.

Samson visits Gaza

16 One day, Samson went to Gaza. He met a prostitute there and he slept with her. ² The people of Gaza heard that Samson was in their city. The men met together and they waited for Samson to leave. They hid themselves all night at the gate of the city. They waited there quietly and they thought, ‘We will kill him at dawn when he tries to leave the city.’^[g]

³ But Samson only stayed with the woman until the middle of the night. Then he got up and he went to leave through the city gate. He took hold of its doors and the two posts that held them. He pulled them all down together, with the metal bar that locked them. He carried them all in one piece on his shoulders. He left them at the top of the hill near Hebron.

Samson and Delilah

⁴ Some time later, Samson met a woman who was called Delilah. She lived in Sorek valley. Samson loved her. ⁵ The rulers of the Philistines went to visit Delilah. They said to her, ‘Do something clever to discover what makes Samson so strong. We want to find a way to take hold of him and tie him up. If you do that, we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.’

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, ‘Please tell me what makes you so strong. How could someone tie you up so that you become helpless?’

⁷ Samson replied, ‘Someone would have to use seven new strings for bows. The strings must not have become dry. If they use those strings to tie me up, I will become weak, like other men.’

⁸ So the Philistine rulers gave Delilah seven new strings for bows. She used them to tie Samson up while he was asleep. ⁹ Some Philistine men hid in a room of her house. Then she shouted, ‘Samson, the Philistines are here!’ But he broke the seven strings very easily. They were like thin cotton that a fire burns. So they did not discover the secret about his strength.

¹⁰ Delilah said to Samson, ‘You have deceived me as if I was a fool! Tell me the truth! How can someone really make you weak?’

¹¹ Samson said to her, ‘They would have to use new ropes that no one has used. If they tie me up with those, I will become weak, like other men.’

¹² So Delilah took some new ropes and she tied Samson up with them. Some Philistine men were hiding in the room, as they did before. Then she shouted, ‘Samson, the Philistines are here!’ But he broke the ropes off his arms, as if they were thin string.

¹³ Then Delilah said to Samson, ‘You have deceived me again as if I was a fool. Now you must tell me the truth. Tell me how someone can make you weak.’

Samson replied, ‘You see that my long hair is tied in seven tails. You must tie them into the cloth that is on the loom. Fix them there very strongly. If you do that, I will become weak, like other men.’ ¹⁴ Delilah did this while Samson was asleep. She took the seven tails of his hair and she tied them into the cloth on the loom. She fixed them with a strong peg. Then she shouted, ‘Samson, the Philistines are here!’ He woke up and he pulled out the peg. He tore his hair away from the cloth on the loom so that he was free.^[h]

¹⁵ Then Delilah said to him, ‘I realize that you do not really love me, because you will not tell me your secret. You have deceived me three times, as if I was a fool. You have refused to tell me what makes you so strong.’ ¹⁶ She continued to say the same thing to Samson many times. Her words made Samson very upset. He felt that he wanted to die.

¹⁷ Finally, Samson told her his secret. He said to her, ‘No one has ever cut my hair. Even before I was born, I belonged to God as a Nazirite. If someone cuts off my hair, I would have no more strength. I would become as weak as any other man.’

¹⁸ Delilah realized that Samson had told her the truth. So she sent a message to the rulers of the Philistines. She told them, ‘Samson has now told me his secret. So come back once more.’ So the Philistine rulers went to visit Delilah again. They took their pieces of silver with them. ¹⁹ Delilah made Samson sleep with his head on her knees. She called a man to come and he cut off the seven tails of Samson's hair. This made Samson helpless, so that he had no more strength.

²⁰ Then Delilah shouted, ‘Samson, the Philistines are here!’ He woke up and he thought, ‘I will make myself free as I have always done before.’ But he did not realize that the Lord had gone away from him.

²¹ The Philistines took hold of Samson. They cut out his eyes. They tied him up with bronze chains. They made him do hard work as their prisoner. He had to push a heavy stone to make grain into flour.

²² But after they had cut off Samson's hair, it began to grow again.

Samson dies

²³ One day, the rulers of the Philistines met together to have a big feast. They offered a great sacrifice to their god, Dagon. They said, ‘Dagon has put our enemy, Samson, under our power.’

²⁴ When the people saw what had happened to Samson, they praised their god. They said, ‘Our god has let us catch our enemy. He was the enemy who destroyed our land and who killed many of us.’

²⁵ The people were very happy at the feast. They shouted, ‘Bring Samson here for us to see him! He can help us to enjoy our party.’

So they brought Samson out of the prison. The people were happy to see him. They made him stand between the pillars of the temple. ²⁶ A young man held Samson's hand to lead him. Samson said to him, ‘Put me where I can touch the pillars which hold up the temple's roof. I want to rest my body on them.’

²⁷ The temple was full of men and women, as well as all the Philistine rulers. About 3,000 people were on the roof as they watched Samson. They were laughing at him. ²⁸ Samson prayed to the Lord, ‘Remember me, Almighty Lord. Please make me strong again one more time. I want to punish the Philistines because they cut out my two eyes.’

²⁹ Then Samson put his hands on the two pillars in the centre of the building. He put his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on the other pillar. He got ready to push. ³⁰ Samson shouted out, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ Then he pushed the pillars with all his strength. The temple fell down on the rulers and all the other people in it. In that way, Samson killed more people as he died than he had killed while he lived.

³¹ Then his brothers and all his father's family came to get his body. They carried it back home. They buried him in the grave of his father, Manoah. That was between Zorah and Eshtaol. Samson had led Israel for 20 years.