Judges 15-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. ² Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?”^{(A) 3} Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes and took some torches, and he turned the foxes^[a] tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and^[b] olive groves. ⁶ Then the Philistines asked, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father.^{(B) 7} Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.” ⁸ He struck them down hip and thigh with a massive defeat, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi.^{(C) 10} The 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 did to us.” ¹¹ Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”^{(D) 12} They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” Samson answered them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not attack me.” ¹³ They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him, and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.^{(E) 15} Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.^{(F) 16} And Samson said,

¹⁷ When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone, and that place was called Ramath-lehi.^[c]

¹⁸ By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”^{(G) 19} So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore,^[d] which is at Lehi to this day.^{(H) 20} And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.^(I)

Samson and Delilah

16 Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. ² The Gazites were told,^[e] “Samson has come here.” So they circled around and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, thinking, “Let us wait^[f] until the light of the morning; then we will kill him.”^{(J) 3} But Samson lay only until midnight. Then at midnight he rose up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

⁴ After this he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. ⁵ The lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great and how we may overpower him, so that we may bind him in order to subdue him, and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”^{(K) 6} So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great and how you could be bound, so that one could subdue you.” ⁷ Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that are not dried out, then I shall become weak and be like anyone else.” ⁸ Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not dried out, and she bound him with them. ⁹ While men were lying in wait in an inner chamber, she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of fiber snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies; please tell me how you could be bound.”^{(L) 11} He said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like anyone else.” ¹² So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (The men lying in wait were in an inner chamber.) But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

¹³ Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies; tell me how you could be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and make it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like anyone else.”^{(M) 14} So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web^[g] and made them tight with the pin. Then she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

¹⁵ Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great.”^{(N) 16} Finally, after she had nagged him with her words day after day and pestered him, he was tired to death. ¹⁷ So he told her his whole secret and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak and be like anyone else.”^(O)

¹⁸ When Delilah realized that he had told her his whole secret, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “This time come up, for he has told his whole secret to me.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She let him fall asleep on her lap, and she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. He began to weaken,^[h] and his strength left him.^{(P) 20} Then she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” When he awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.^{(Q) 21} So the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he ground at the mill in the prison. ²² But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Samson’s Death

²³ Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon and to rejoice, for they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.”^{(R) 24} When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.”^{(S) 25} And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, and let him entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars,^{(T) 26} and Samson said to the attendant who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean against them.” ²⁷ Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women who looked on while Samson performed.^(U)

²⁸ Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”^{[i](V) 29} And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. ³⁰ Then Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He strained with all his might, and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life. ³¹ Then his kindred and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. He had judged Israel twenty years.^(W)

Micah and the Levite

17 There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. ² He said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing—that silver is in my possession; I took it, but now I will return it to you.”^[j] And his mother said, “May my son be blessed by the Lord!” ³ Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, “I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make an idol of cast metal.”^{(X) 4} So when he returned the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into an idol of cast metal, and it was in the house of Micah. ⁵ This man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and teraphim and installed one of his sons, who became his priest.^{(Y) 6} In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.^(Z)

⁷ Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there.^{(AA) 8} This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could find a place. He came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim to carry on his work.^{[k] 9} Micah said to him, “From where do you come?” He replied, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to live wherever I can find a place.” ¹⁰ Then Micah said to him, “Stay with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a set of clothes, and your living.”^{[l](AB) 11} The Levite agreed to stay with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons. ¹² So Micah installed the Levite, and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah.^{(AC) 13} Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest.”