Judges 13; Judges 14; Judges 15

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Judges 13

1 The Israelites again did things that the LORD saw as evil, and he handed them over to the Philistines for forty years.
2 Now there was a certain man from Zorah, from the Danite clan, whose name was Manoah. His wife was unable to become pregnant and had not given birth to any children.
3 The LORD's messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, "Even though you've been unable to become pregnant and haven't given birth, you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son!
4 Now be careful not to drink wine or brandy or to eat anything that is ritually unclean,
5 because you are pregnant and will give birth to a son. Don't allow a razor to shave his head, because the boy is going to be a nazirite for God from birth. He'll be the one who begins Israel's rescue from the power of the Philistines."
6 Then the woman went and told her husband, "A man of God came to me, and he looked like God's messenger—very scary! I didn't ask him where he was from, and he didn't tell me his name.
7 He said to me, ‘You are pregnant and will give birth to a son, so don't drink wine or brandy or eat anything that is ritually unclean, because the boy is going to be a nazirite for God from birth until the day he dies.'"
8 Manoah asked the LORD, "Please, my Lord," he said, "let the man of God whom you sent come back to us once more, so he can teach us how we should treat the boy who is to be born."
9 God listened to Manoah, and God's messenger came once more to the woman. She was sitting in the field, but her husband Manoah wasn't with her.
10 So the woman hurriedly ran and informed her husband. She said to him, "The man who came to me the other day has just appeared to me."
11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. He came to the man and said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to this woman?" "I am," he replied.
12 Manoah said, "Now when your words come true, what should be the rules for the boy and how he should act?"
13 The LORD's messenger answered Manoah, "The woman should be careful to do everything that I told her.
14 She must not consume anything that comes from the grapevine, drink wine or brandy, or eat anything that is ritually unclean. She must be careful to do everything I have commanded her."
15 Manoah said to the LORD's messenger, "Please let us persuade you to stay so we can prepare a young goat for you."
16 But the LORD's messenger replied to Manoah, "If you persuaded me to stay, I wouldn't eat your food. If you prepare an entirely burned offering, offer it to the LORD." Indeed, Manoah didn't know that he was the LORD's messenger.
17 Manoah said to the LORD's messenger, "What's your name, so that we may honor you when your words come true?"
18 The LORD's messenger responded to him, "Why do you ask my name? You couldn't understand it."
19 So Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the LORD. While Manoah and his wife were looking, an amazing thing happened:
20 as the flame from the altar went up toward the sky, the LORD's messenger went up in the altar's flame. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown on the ground.
21 The LORD's messenger didn't reappear to Manoah or his wife, and Manoah then realized that it had been the LORD's messenger.
22 Manoah said to his wife, "We are certainly going to die, because we've seen God!"
23 But his wife replied to him, "If the LORD wanted to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted the entirely burned offering and grain offering from our hands. He wouldn't have shown us all these things or told us all of this now."
24 The woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up, and the LORD blessed him.
25 The LORD's spirit began to move him when he was in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Judges 14

1 Samson traveled down to Timnah. While he was in Timnah, a Philistine woman caught his eye.
2 He went back home and told his father and mother, "A Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye; now get her for me as a wife!"
3 But his father and mother replied to him, "Is there no woman among your own relatives or among all our people that you have to go get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" Yet Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she's the one I want!"
4 His father and mother didn't know that the LORD was behind this. He was looking for an opening with the Philistines, because they were ruling over Israel at that time.
5 Then Samson traveled down to Timnah with his father and mother. When he came to the vineyards in Timnah, suddenly a lone young lion came roaring to meet him.
6 The LORD's spirit rushed over him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one might tear apart a young goat. But he didn't tell his father or mother what he had done.
7 Then he traveled down and talked with the woman; she was the one Samson wanted.
8 After a while, he came back again to marry her. He turned aside to look at the lion's remains, and there was a swarm of bees with honey inside the lion's skeleton.
9 He scooped the honey into his hands, eating it as he continued along. When he got to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it too. But he didn't tell them that he had scooped the honey from the lion's skeleton.
10 His father traveled down to the woman, and Samson put on a feast there, as was the custom for young men.
11 When the townspeople saw him, they selected thirty companions to be with him.
12 Then Samson said to them, "Let me tell you a riddle. If you can figure it out and tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, I'll give you thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes.
13 But if you can't tell me the answer, then it's you who have to give me thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes." So they replied to him, "Tell your riddle; let's hear it."
14 He said to them, "Out of the eater there came something to eat. Out of the strong there came something sweet." For three days they couldn't tell the answer to the riddle.
15 On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, "Seduce your husband so he'll tell us the answer to the riddle, or else we'll set fire to you and your household. Were we invited here just to become poor?"
16 So Samson's wife cried on his shoulder and said, "You hate me! You don't love me! You told a riddle to my people but didn't tell me the answer." He replied to her, "Look, I haven't even told the answer to my father and mother. Why should I tell it to you?"
17 But she cried on his shoulder for the rest of the seven days of the feast. Finally, on the seventh day, he told her the answer, for she had nagged him. And she told her people the answer to the riddle.
18 So on the seventh day, before the sun set, the townspeople said to him, "What's sweeter than honey? What's stronger than a lion?" He replied to them, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have figured out my riddle!"
19 Then the LORD's spirit rushed over him, and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty of their men, stripped them of their gear, and gave the sets of clothes to the ones who had told the answer to the riddle. In anger, he went back up to his father's household.
20 And Samson's wife married one of those who had been his companions.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible

Judges 15

1 Later on, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a young goat. He said, "Let me go into my wife's bedroom." But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.
2 Her father said, "I was so sure that you had completely rejected her that I gave her in marriage to one of your companions. Don't you think her younger sister is even better? Let her be your wife instead."
3 Samson replied, "No one can blame me now for being ready to bring down trouble on the Philistines!"
4 Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.
5 He lit the torches and released the foxes into the Philistines' grain fields. So he burned the stacked grain, standing grain, vineyards, and olive orchards.
6 The Philistines inquired, "Who did this?" So it was reported, "Samson the Timnite's son-in-law did it, because his father-in-law gave his wife in marriage to one of his companions." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.
7 Samson then responded to them, "If this is how you act, then I won't stop until I get revenge on you!"
8 He struck them hard, taking their legs right out from under them. Then he traveled down and stayed in a cave in the rock at Etam.
9 The Philistines marched up, made camp in Judah, and released their forces on Lehi.
10 The people of Judah asked, "Why have you marched up against us?" "We've marched up to take Samson prisoner," they replied, "and to do to him just what he did to us."
11 So three thousand people from Judah traveled down to the cave in the rock at Etam and said to Samson, "Don't you realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?" But he told them, "I did to them just what they did to me."
12 Then the people of Judah said to him, "We've come down to take you prisoner so we can turn you over to the Philistines." Samson responded to them, "Just promise that you won't attack me yourselves."
13 "We won't," they said to him. "We'll only take you prisoner so we can turn you over to them. We won't kill you." Then they tied him up with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.
14 When Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines met him and came out shouting. The LORD's spirit rushed over him, the ropes on his arms became like burned-up linen, and the ties melted right off his hands.
15 He found a donkey's fresh jawbone, picked it up, and used it to attack one thousand men.
16 Samson said, "With a donkey's jawbone, stacks on stacks! With a donkey's jawbone, I've killed one thousand men."
17 When he finished speaking, he tossed away the jawbone. So that place became known as Ramath-lehi.
18 Now Samson was very thirsty, so he called out to the LORD, "You are the one who allowed this great victory to be accomplished by your servant's hands. Am I now going to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"
19 So God split open the hollow rock in Lehi, and water flowed out of it. When Samson drank, his energy returned and he was recharged. Thus that place is still called by the name En-hakkore in Lehi today.
20 Samson led Israel for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible