Judges 15:1-10

1 Some time later Samson went to visit his wife during the wheat harvest and took her a young goat. He told her father, "I want to go to my wife's room." But he wouldn't let him go in.
2 He told Samson, "I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your friend. But her younger sister is prettier, anyway. You can have her, instead."
3 Samson said, "This time I'm not going to be responsible for what I do to the Philistines!"
4 So he went and caught three hundred foxes. Two at a time, he tied their tails together and put torches in the knots.
5 Then he set fire to the torches and turned the foxes loose in the Philistine wheat fields. In this way he burned up not only the wheat that had been harvested but also the wheat that was still in the fields. The olive orchards were also burned.
6 When the Philistines asked who had done this, they learned that Samson had done it because his father-in-law, a man from Timnah, had given Samson's wife to a friend of Samson's. So the Philistines went and burned the woman to death and burned down her father's house.
7 Samson told them, "So this is how you act! I swear that I won't stop until I pay you back!"
8 He attacked them fiercely and killed many of them. Then he went and stayed in the cave in the cliff at Etam.
9 The Philistines came and camped in Judah, and attacked the town of Lehi.
10 The men of Judah asked them, "Why are you attacking us?" They answered, "We came to take Samson prisoner and to treat him as he treated us."

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. burned the woman . . . house; [or] burned the woman and her family to death.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.