Samson Versus the Philistines Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father,“I want to sleep with my bride in her bedroom!” But her father would not let him enter.
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2Her father said,“I really thought you absolutely despised her, so I gave her to your best man. Her younger sister is more attractive than she is. Take her instead!”
3Samson said to them,“This time I am justified in doing the Philistines harm!”
1Samson’s Unconsummated Marriage Samson went down to Timnah, where a Philistine girl caught his eye.
2When he got home, he told his father and mother,“A Philistine girl in Timnah has caught my eye. Now get her for my wife.”
3But his father and mother said to him,“Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines.” But Samson said to his father,“Get her for me, because she is the right one for me.”
4Now his father and mother did not realize this was the LORD’s doing, because he was looking for an opportunity to stir up trouble with the Philistines(for at that time the Philistines were ruling Israel).
5Samson went down to Timnah. When he approached the vineyards of Timnah, he saw a roaring young lion attacking him.
6The LORD’s Spirit empowered him and he tore the lion in two with his bare hands as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.
7Samson continued on down to Timnah and spoke to the girl. In his opinion, she was just the right one.
8Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to see the lion’s remains. He saw a swarm of bees in the lion’s carcass, as well as some honey.
9He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion’s carcass.
10Then Samson’s father accompanied him to Timnah for the marriage. Samson hosted a party there, for this was customary for bridegrooms to do.
11When the Philistines saw he had no attendants, they gave him thirty groomsmen who kept him company.
5He lit the torches and set the jackals loose in the Philistines’ standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
6The Philistines asked,“Who did this?” They were told,“Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson’s bride and gave her to his best man.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.
7Samson said to them,“Because you did this, I will get revenge against you before I quit fighting.”
15On the fourth day they said to Samson’s bride,“Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. If you refuse, we will burn up you and your father’s family. Did you invite us here to make us poor?”
16So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder and said,“You must hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men a riddle, but you have not told me the solution.” He said to her,“Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?”
17She cried on his shoulder until the party was almost over. Finally, on the seventh day, he told her because she had nagged him so much. Then she told the young men the solution to the riddle.
1Samson’s Downfall Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and slept with her.
3Samson spent half the night with the prostitute; then he got up in the middle of the night and left. He grabbed the doors of the city gate, as well as the two posts, and pulled them right off, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a hill east of Hebron.
4After this Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.
5The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her,“Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces.”
6So Delilah said to Samson,“Tell me what makes you so strong and how you can be subdued and humiliated.”
19The LORD’s Spirit empowered him. He went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty men. He took their clothes and gave them to the men who had solved the riddle. He was furious as he went back home.
20Samson’s bride was then given to his best man.
2However, she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. When she had been there four months,
3her husband came after her, hoping he could convince her to return. He brought with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. When she brought him into her father’s house and the girl’s father saw him, he greeted him warmly.
4His father-in-law, the girl’s father, persuaded him to stay with him for three days, and they ate and drank together, and spent the night there.
5On the fourth day they woke up early and the Levite got ready to leave. But the girl’s father said to his son-in-law,“Have a bite to eat for some energy, then you can go.”
23But his wife said to him,“If the LORD wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
24Manoah’s wife gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew and the LORD empowered him.
10The men of Judah said,“Why are you attacking us?” The Philistines said,“We have come up to take Samson prisoner so we can do to him what he has done to us.”
11Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson,“Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them,“I have only done to them what they have done to me.”
12They said to him,“We have come down to take you prisoner so we can hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said to them,“Promise me you will not kill me.”
18When Delilah saw that he had told her his secret, she sent for the rulers of the Philistines, saying,“Come up here again, for he has told me his secret.” So the rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her, bringing the silver in their hands.
19She made him go to sleep on her lap and then called a man in to shave off the seven braids of his hair. She made him vulnerable and his strength left him.
20She said,“The Philistines are here, Samson!” He woke up and thought,“I will do as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not realize that the LORD had left him.
8So the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried and she tied him up with them.
9They hid in the bedroom and then she said to him,“The Philistines are here, Samson!” He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. The secret of his strength was not discovered.
12So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him,“The Philistines are here, Samson!”(The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) But he tore the ropes from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.
13Delilah said to Samson,“Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued.” He said to her,“If you weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
14So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him,“The Philistines are here, Samson!” He woke up and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.
15She said to him,“How can you say,‘I love you,’ when you will not share your secret with me? Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong.”
27Now the temple was filled with men and women, and all the rulers of the Philistines were there. There were three thousand men and women on the roof watching Samson entertain.
14accusing her of impropriety and defaming her reputation by saying,“I married this woman but when I approached her for marital relations I discovered she was not a virgin!”
16He turned aside to her along the road and said,“Come, please, I want to sleep with you.”(He did not realize it was his daughter-in-law.) She asked,“What will you give me so that you may sleep with me?”
31His brothers and all his family went down and brought him back. They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel for twenty years.
16The young woman’s father must say to the elders,“I gave my daughter to this man and he has rejected her.
9When the man got ready to leave with his concubine and his servant, his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him,“Look! The day is almost over! Stay another night! Since the day is over, stay another night here and have a good time. You can get up early tomorrow and start your trip home.”