Then the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and Jehovah delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

And there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had borne no children.

And the  ¹Angel of Jehovah  ²appeared to the woman and said to her, Now you are barren and have borne no children; but you will conceive and bear a son.

And now be careful not to drink wine or strong drink nor to eat anything unclean;

For you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the boy will be a  ¹Nazarite to God from the womb; and he will begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.

Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A  ¹man of God came to me; and His appearance was like the appearance of an angel of God, very awesome. And I did not ask Him where He was from, nor did He tell me His name;

But He said to me, You shall conceive and bear a son. And now do not drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean; for the boy will be a Nazarite to God from the womb until the day of his death.

Then Manoah entreated Jehovah and said, Oh, my Lord! Let the man of God, whom You sent, come again to us, I pray; and let Him teach us what we should do with the boy that is to be born.

And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the Angel of God came again to the woman while she was sitting in the field, but Manoah her husband was not with her.

And the woman hurried and ran off; and she told her husband and said to him, The man who came to me that day has just appeared to me.

And Manoah rose up and followed his wife and came to the man. And he said to Him, Are You the man who spoke to this woman? And He said, I am.

And Manoah said, Now when Your words come to pass, what rule shall the boy follow, and what shall he do?

And the Angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, Observe all that I spoke to this woman.

She is not to eat of anything that comes forth from the grapevine, nor is she to drink wine or strong drink, nor is she to eat anything unclean; she shall observe all that I commanded her.

And Manoah said to the Angel of Jehovah, Let us detain You, we pray, that we may prepare a kid for You.

And the Angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, If you detain Me, I will not eat your food; but if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it up to Jehovah. For Manoah did not know that He was the Angel of Jehovah.

Then Manoah said to the Angel of Jehovah, What is Your name, so that when Your words come to pass, we may honor You?

And the Angel of Jehovah said to him, Why do you ask about My name, since it is  ¹wonderful?

And Manoah took the kid with the meal offering and offered it up upon the rock to Jehovah; and He acted wondrously, while Manoah and his wife looked on.

And when the flame went up from the altar to heaven, the Angel of Jehovah went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

And the Angel of Jehovah did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of Jehovah.

And Manoah said to his wife, We will surely die, for we have seen God.

But his wife said to him, If Jehovah had been pleased to kill us, He would not have taken a burnt offering and a meal offering from our hand, nor would He have shown us all these things or let us hear a thing like this at this time.

And the woman bore a son, and she called his name Samson. And the boy grew up, and Jehovah blessed him.

And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him at  ¹Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

And Samson went down to Timnah, and he saw a  ¹woman in Timnah from the daughters of the Philistines.

And he went up and told his father and mother and said, I have seen a woman in Timnah from the daughters of the Philistines. Now therefore get her for me as a wife.

But his father and mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your brothers or among all my people, that you must go and get a woman of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she pleases me.

But his father and mother did not know this was of Jehovah, for He was looking for an opportunity against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.

So Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. And as they came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared against him.

And the Spirit of Jehovah rushed upon him, and he  ¹tore it apart as one might tear a kid apart with his bare hands. And he did not tell his father and mother what he had done.

And he went down and spoke to the woman, and she pleased Samson.

Then after some time, while he was returning to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And there it was, with a swarm of bees in the lion's body, and honey.

And he scraped it out into his hands and went away, eating it as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave them some, and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the body of the lion.

And his father went down to the woman; and Samson held a feast there, for so the young men used to do.

And when they saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

And Samson said to them, Let me now put forth a riddle to you. If you fully explain it to me within the seven days of the feast and find it out, I will give you thirty fine linen garments and thirty changes of clothing;

But if you cannot explain it to me, you shall give me thirty fine linen garments and thirty changes of clothing. And they said to him, Put forth your riddle, let us hear it.

And he said to them,
Out of the eater came forth food,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness.
And they could not explain the riddle after three days.

Then on the  ¹fourth day they said to Samson's wife, Entice your husband to explain the riddle to us; otherwise we will burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here in order to impoverish us? Is it not so?

So Samson's wife wept before him and said, You only hate me, and you do not love me: You have put forth a riddle to the children of my people, but you have not explained it to me. And he said to her, Look, I have not explained it to my own father and mother. Should I then explain it to you?

And she wept before him the rest of the seven days that they had the feast. But on the seventh day he explained it to her, for she pressed him. Then she explained the riddle to the children of her people.

And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before sunset,
What is sweeter than honey,
And what is stronger than a lion?
And he said to them,
If you had not plowed with my heifer,
You would not have found out my riddle.

Then the Spirit of Jehovah rushed upon him; and he went down to Ashkelon and struck thirty men among them; and he took their clothing and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle. And his anger burned, and he went up to his father's house.

And Samson's wife was given to his best man, who had been his friend.

Then after some time, during the days of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a kid. And he said, Let me go into the chamber to my wife; but her father would not allow him to go in.

And her father said, I surely thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your best man. Is not her younger sister better than she? Let her be yours instead of her.

Then Samson said to them, This time I will be blameless with regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.

And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in between every two tails.

Then he set the torches on fire and sent the foxes into the Philistines' standing grain and burned up the shocks and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and the olive groves.

And 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 best man. And the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire.

And Samson said to them, If this is how you act, I will surely take revenge on you, and then I will stop.

And he struck them hip and thigh, a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

And the Philistines rose up and encamped in Judah, and they spread out against Lehi.

And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they said, We have come up to bind Samson, so that we can do to him as he has done to us.

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam; and they said to Samson, Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Then what is this that you have done to us? And he said to them, As they have done to me, so I have done to them.

And they said to him, We have come down to bind you up so that we can deliver you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves.

And they spoke to him, saying, No, we will only bind you and deliver you into their hand, but we certainly will not put you to death. And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

When he came into Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. And the Spirit of Jehovah rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax when it burns in fire; and his bonds melted from off his hands.

And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass; and he stretched out his hand and took it, and struck a thousand men with it.

And Samson said,
With the jawbone of an ass,
A heap upon a double heap;
With the jawbone of an ass,
I have struck a thousand men dead.

And when he finished speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and he called that place  ¹Ramath-lehi.

And he was very thirsty, and he called on Jehovah, saying, You have granted this great victory by the hand of Your servant. And will I now die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?

But God broke open the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came forth from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned and he was revived; therefore he called the name of that place  ¹En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.