King James VersionJudges15

Judges

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.