¹But after a while , in the time of wheat harvest , Samson visited his wife with a young goat . He said, “I will go in to my wife’s room .”

But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in .

²Her father said, “I most certainly thought that you utterly hated her ; therefore I gave her to your companion . Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she ? Please , take her instead .”

³Samson said to them , “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them .”

⁴Samson went and caught three hundred foxes , and took torches , and turned tail to tail , and put a torch in the middle between every two tails .

⁵When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines , and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain , and also the olive groves .

⁶Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this ?”

They said, “Samson , the son-in-law of the Timnite , because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion .” The Philistines came up , and burnt her and her father with fire.

⁷Samson said to them , “If you behave like this , surely I will take revenge on you , and after that I will cease .”

⁸He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter ; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam ’s rock .

⁹Then the Philistines went up , encamped in Judah , and spread themselves in Lehi .

¹⁰The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us ?”

They said, “We have come up to bind Samson , to do to him as he has done to us .”

¹¹Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam ’s rock , and said to Samson , “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us ? What then is this that you have done to us ?”

He said to them , “As they did to me , so I have done to them .”

¹²They said to him , “We have come down to bind you , that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines .”

Samson said to them , “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves .”

¹³They spoke to him , saying, “No , but we will bind you securely and deliver you into their hands ; but surely we will not kill you .” They bound him with two new ropes , and brought him up from the rock .

¹⁴When he came to Lehi , the Philistines shouted as they met him . Then the LORD ’s Spirit came mightily on him , and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands .

¹⁵He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey , put out his hand , took it , and struck a thousand men with it .

¹⁶Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey , heaps on heaps ; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.”

¹⁷When he had finished speaking , he threw the jawbone out of his hand ; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.[#15:17 “Ramath” means “hill” and “Lehi” means “jawbone”.]

¹⁸He was very thirsty , and called on the LORD and said , “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant ; and now shall I die of thirst , and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised ?”

¹⁹But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi , and water came out of it . When he had drunk , his spirit came again , and he revived . Therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi , to this day .

²⁰He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines .