15:1 But it came to pass after a while, 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.
15:2 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.
15:3 And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more
blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.
15:4 And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took
fire-brands, and turned tail to tail, and put a fire-brand in
the midst between two tails.
15:5 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.
15:6 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.
15:7 And Samson said to them, Though ye have done this, yet will
I be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.
15:8 And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And
he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
15:9 Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and
spread themselves in Lehi.
15:10 And the men of Judah said, Why have ye come up against us?
And they answered, We have come to bind Samson, to do to him as
he hath done to us.
15:11 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 to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so
have I done to them.
15:12 And they said to him, We have come down to bind thee, that
we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And
Samson said to them, Swear to me, that ye will not fall upon me
yourselves.
15:13 And they spoke to 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.
15:14 [And] when he came to 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 the hands.
15:15 And he found a fresh jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his
hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men with it.
15:16 And Samson said, With the jaw-bone of an ass, heaps upon
heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men.
15:17 And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking,
that he cast away the jaw-bone out of his hand, and called that
place Ramath-lehi.
15:18 And he was very thirsty, and called on the LORD, and said,
Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy
servant: and now shall I die by thirst, and fall into the hand
of the uncircumcised?
15:19 But God cleaved a hollow place that was in the jaw, and
there came water out of it; and when he had drank, his spirit
came again, and he revived. Wherefore he called the name of it
En-hakkore, which [is] in Lehi to this day.
15:20 And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines,
twenty years.
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