Judges 12-16

Judges 12

¹Now the men of Ephraim came together and took up arms and went over to Zaphon; and they said to Jephthah, Why did you go over to make war against the children of Ammon without sending for us to go with you? Now we will put your house on fire over you.

²And Jephthah said to them, I and my people were in danger, and the children of Ammon were very cruel to us, and when I sent for you, you gave me no help against them.

³So when I saw that there was no help to be had from you, I put my life in my hand and went over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hands: why then have you come up to me this day to make war on me?

⁴Then Jephthah got together all the men of Gilead and made war on Ephraim; and the men of Gilead overcame Ephraim.

⁵And the Gileadites took the crossing-places of Jordan against the Ephraimites; and when any of the men of Ephraim who had gone in flight said, let me go over; the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite? And if he said, No;

⁶Then they said to him, Now say Shibboleth; and he said Sibboleth, and was not able to say it in the right way; then they took him and put him to death at the crossing-places of Jordan; and at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites were put to death.

⁷Now Jephthah was judge of Israel for six years. And Jephthah the Gileadite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in his town, Mizpeh of Gilead.

⁸And after him, Ibzan of Beth-lehem was judge of Israel.

⁹He had thirty sons, and thirty daughters whom he sent to other places, and he got thirty wives from other places for his sons. And he was judge of Israel for seven years.

¹⁰And Ibzan came to his death and his body was put to rest at Beth-lehem.

¹¹And after him, Elon the Zebulonite was judge of Israel; and he was judge of Israel for ten years.

¹²And Elon the Zebulonite came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

¹³And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, was judge of Israel.

¹⁴He had forty sons and thirty sons' sons who went on seventy young asses; and he was judge of Israel for eight years.

¹⁵And Abdon, the son of Hillel, came to his death, and his body was put to rest in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill-country of the Amalekites.

Judges 13

¹And the children of Israel again did evil in the eyes of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.

²Now there was a certain man of Zorah of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah; and his wife had never given birth to a child.

³And the angel of the Lord came to the woman, and said to her, See now! though you have never given birth to children, you will be with child and give birth to a son.

⁴Now then take care to have no wine or strong drink and to take no unclean thing for food;

⁵For you are with child and will give birth to a son; his hair is never to be cut, for the child is to be separate to God from his birth; and he will take up the work of freeing Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

⁶Then the woman came in, and said to her husband, A man came to me, and his form was like the form of a god, causing great fear; I put no question to him about where he came from, and he did not give me his name;

⁷But he said to me, You are with child and will give birth to a son; and now do not take any wine or strong drink or let anything unclean be your food; for the child will be separate to God from his birth to the day of his death.

⁸Then Manoah made prayer to the Lord, and said, O Lord, let the man of God whom you sent come to us again and make clear to us what we are to do for the child who is to come.

⁹And God gave ear to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came to the woman again when she was seated in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her.

¹⁰So the woman, running quickly, gave her husband the news, saying, I have seen the man who came to me the other day.

¹¹And Manoah got up and went after his wife, and came up to the man and said to him, Are you the man who was talking to this woman? And he said, I am.

¹²And Manoah said, Now when your words come true, what is to be the rule for the child and what will be his work?

¹³And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Let the woman take note of what I have said to her.

¹⁴She is to have nothing which comes from the vine for her food, and let her take no wine or strong drink or anything which is unclean; let her take care to do all I have given her orders to do.

¹⁵And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, Now let us keep you while we make ready a young goat for you.

¹⁶And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, Though you keep me I will not take of your food; but if you will make a burned offering, let it be offered to the Lord. For it had not come into Manoah's mind that he was the angel of the Lord.

¹⁷Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, What is your name, so that when your words come true we may give you honour?

¹⁸But the angel of the Lord said to him, Why are you questioning me about my name, seeing that it is a wonder?

¹⁹So Manoah took the young goat with its meal offering, offering it on the rock to the Lord, who did strange things.

²⁰And when the flame went up to heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife were looking on; and they went down on their faces to the earth.

²¹But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then it was clear to Manoah that he was the angel of the Lord.

²²And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be our fate, for it is a god whom we have seen.

²³But his wife said to him, If the Lord was purposing our death, he would not have taken our burned offering and our meal offering, or have given us such orders about the child.

²⁴So the woman gave birth to a son, and gave him the name Samson; and he became a man and the blessing of the Lord was on him.

²⁵And the spirit of the Lord first came on him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Judges 14

¹Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines;

²And when he came back he said to his father and mother, I have seen a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines: get her now for me for my wife.

³Then his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your relations or among all my people, that you have to go for your wife to the Philistines, who are without circumcision? But Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she is pleasing to me.

⁴Now his father and mother had no knowledge that this was the purpose of the Lord, who had the destruction of the Philistines in mind. Now the Philistines at that time were ruling over Israel.

⁵Then Samson went down to Timnah (and his father and his mother,) and came to the vine-gardens of Timnah; and a young lion came rushing out at him.

⁶And the spirit of the Lord came on him with power, and, unarmed as he was, pulling the lion in two as one might do to a young goat, he put him to death; (but he said nothing to his father and mother of what he had done.)

⁷So he went down and had talk with the woman; and she was pleasing to Samson.

⁸Then after a time he went back to take her; and turning from the road to see the dead body of the lion, he saw a mass of bees in the body of the lion, and honey there.

⁹And he took the honey in his hand, and went on, tasting it on the way; and when he came to his father and mother he gave some to them; but did not say that he had taken the honey from the body of the lion.

¹⁰Then Samson went down to the woman, and made a feast there, as was the way among young men.

¹¹And he took thirty friends, and they were with him.

¹²And Samson said, Now I have a hard question for you: if you are able to give me the answer before the seven days of the feast are over, I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty changes of clothing;

¹³But if you are not able to give me the answer, then you will have to give me thirty linen robes and thirty changes of clothing. And they said to him, Put your hard question and let us see what it is.

¹⁴And he said, Out of the taker of food came food, and out of the strong came the sweet. And at the end of three days they were still not able to give the answer.

¹⁵So on the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Get from your husband the answer to his question by some trick or other, or we will have you and your father's house burned with fire; did you get us here to take all we have?

¹⁶Then Samson's wife, weeping over him, said, Truly you have no love for me but only hate; you have put a hard question to the children of my people and have not given me the answer. And he said to her, See, I have not given the answer even to my father or my mother; am I to give it to you?

¹⁷And all the seven days of the feast she went on weeping over him; and on the seventh day he gave her the answer, because she gave him no peace; and she sent word of it to the children of her people.

¹⁸Then on the seventh day, before he went into the bride's room, the men of the town said to him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If you had not been ploughing with my cow you would not have got the answer to my question.

¹⁹And the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and he went down to Ashkelon and, attacking thirty men there, took their clothing from them, and gave it to the men who had given the answer to his hard question. Then, full of wrath, he went back to his father's house.

²⁰But Samson's wife was given to the friend who had been his best man.

Judges 15

¹Now a short time after, at the time of the grain-cutting, Samson, taking with him a young goat, went to see his wife; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the bride's room. But her father would not let him go in.

²And her father said, It seemed to me that you had only hate for her; so I gave her to your friend: but is not her younger sister fairer than she? so please take her in place of the other.

³Then Samson said to them, This time I will give payment in full to the Philistines, for I am going to do them great evil.

⁴So Samson went and got three hundred foxes and some sticks of fire-wood; and he put the foxes tail to tail with a stick between every two tails;

⁵Then firing the sticks, he let the foxes loose among the uncut grain of the Philistines, and all the corded stems as well as the living grain and the vine-gardens and the olives went up in flames.

⁶Then the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they said, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his friend. So the Philistines came up and had her and her father's house burned.

⁷And Samson said to them, If you go on like this, truly I will take my full payment from you; and that will be the end of it.

⁸And he made an attack on them, driving them in uncontrolled flight, and causing great destruction; then he went away to his safe place in the crack of the rock at Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines went and put up their tents in Judah, all round Lehi.

¹⁰And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they said, We have come up to take Samson, and to do to him as he has done to us.

¹¹Then three thousand of the men of Judah went down to the crack of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, Is it not clear to you that the Philistines are our rulers? What is this you have done to us? And he said to them, I only did to them as they did to me.

¹²Then they said to him, We have come down to take you and give you up into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Give me your oath that you will not make an attack on me yourselves.

¹³And they said, No; we will take you and give you up into their hands, but truly we will not put you to death. So knotting two new cords round him they took him up from the rock.

¹⁴And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came out, meeting him with loud cries; then the spirit of the Lord came rushing on him, and the cords on his arms became like grass which has been burned with fire, and the bands came falling off his hands.

¹⁵And taking up the mouth-bone of an ass newly dead, which he saw by chance on the earth, he put to death a thousand men with it.

¹⁶And Samson said, With a red ass's mouth-bone I have made them red with blood, with a red ass's mouth-bone I have sent destruction on a thousand men.

¹⁷And having said these words, he let the mouth-bone go out of his hand; so that place was named Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸After this, he was in great need of water, and crying out to the Lord, he said, You have given this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and now need of water will be my death; and I will be given into the hands of this people who are without circumcision.

¹⁹Then God made a crack in the hollow rock in Lehi and water came out of it; and after drinking, his spirit came back to him and he was strong again; so that place was named En-hakkore; it is in Lehi to this day.

²⁰And he was judge of Israel in the days of the Philistines for twenty years.

Judges 16

¹Now Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a loose woman and went in to her.

²And it was said to the Gazites, Samson is here. So they went round, watching for him all day at the doorway of the town, but at night they kept quiet, saying, When daylight comes we will put him to death.

³And Samson was there till the middle of the night; then he got up, and took a grip on the doors of the town, pulling them up, together with their two supports and their locks, and put them on his back and took them up to the top of the hill in front of Hebron.

⁴Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, named Delilah.

⁵And the chiefs of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, Make use of your power over him and see what is the secret of his great strength, and how we may get the better of him, and put bands on him, so that we may make him feeble; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.

⁶So Delilah said to Samson, Make clear to me now what is the secret of your great strength, and how you may be put in bands and made feeble.

⁷And Samson said to her, If seven new bow-cords which have never been made dry are knotted round me, I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

⁸So the chiefs of the Philistines gave her seven new bow-cords which had never been made dry, and she had them tightly knotted round him.

⁹Now she had men waiting secretly in the inner room; and she said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And the cords were broken by him as a twist of thread is broken when touched by a flame. So the secret of his strength did not come to light.

¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, See, you have been making sport of me with false words; now, say truly how may you be put in bands?

¹¹And he said to her, If they only put round me new thick cords which have never been used, then I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

¹²So Delilah took new thick cords, knotting them tightly round him, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And men were waiting secretly in the inner room. And the cords were broken off his arms like threads.

¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, Up to now you have made sport of me with false words; now say truly, how may you be put in bands? And he said to her, If you get the seven twists of my hair worked into the cloth you are making and fixed with the pin, I will become feeble and will be like any other man.

¹⁴So while he was sleeping she got the seven twists of his hair worked into her cloth and fixed with the pin, and said to him, The Philistines are on you, Samson. Then awaking from his sleep, he got up quickly, pulling up cloth and machine together.

¹⁵And she said to him, Why do you say you are my lover when your heart is not mine? Three times you have made sport of me, and have not made clear to me the secret of your great strength.

¹⁶So day after day she gave him no peace, for ever questioning him till his soul was troubled to death.

¹⁷And opening all his heart to her, he said to her, My head has never been touched by a blade, for I have been separate to God from the day of my birth: if my hair is cut off, then my strength will go from me and I will become feeble, and will be like any other man.

¹⁸And when Delilah saw that he had let her see into his heart, she sent word to the chiefs of the Philistines saying, Come up this time, for he has let out all his heart to me. Then the chiefs of the Philistines came to her, with the money in their hands.

¹⁹And she made him go to sleep on her knees; and she sent for a man and had his seven twists of hair cut off; and while it was being done he became feeble and his strength went from him.

²⁰Then she said, The Philistines are on you, Samson. And awaking from his sleep, he said, I will go out as at other times, shaking myself free. But he was not conscious that the Lord had gone from him.

²¹So the Philistines took him and put out his eyes; then they took him down to Gaza, and, chaining him with bands of brass, put him to work crushing grain in the prison-house.

²²But the growth of his hair was starting again after it had been cut off.

²³And the chiefs of the Philistines came together to make a great offering to Dagon their god, and to be glad; for they said, Our god has given into our hands Samson our hater.

²⁴And when the people saw him, they gave praise to their god; for they said, Our god has given into our hands the one who was fighting against us, who made our country waste, and who put great numbers of us to death.

²⁵Now when their hearts were full of joy, they said, Send for Samson to make sport for us. And they sent for Samson out of the prison-house, and he made sport before them; and they put him between the pillars.

²⁶And Samson said to the boy who took him by the hand, Let me put my hand on the pillars supporting the house, so that I may put my back against them.

²⁷Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and about three thousand men and women were on the roof, looking on while Samson made sport.

²⁸And Samson, crying out to the Lord, said, O Lord God, do have me now in mind, and do make me strong only this once, O God, so that I may take one last payment from the Philistines for my two eyes.

²⁹Then Samson put his arms round the two middle pillars supporting the house, putting his weight on them, on one with his right hand and on the other with his left.

³⁰And Samson said, Let death overtake me with the Philistines. And he put out all his strength, and the house came down on the chiefs and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he sent to destruction by his death were more than all those on whom he had sent destruction in his life.

³¹Then his brothers and his father's people came down and took him up and put his body to rest in the earth between Zorah and Eshtaol in the resting-place of Manoah his father. And he had been judge of Israel for twenty years.