Thematic Bible




Judges 15:1 (show verse)

Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and visited his wife. “I want to go to my wife in her room,” he said. But her father would not let him enter.

Judges 15:2 (show verse)

“I was sure you hated her,” her father said, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn’t her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?”

Judges 15:3 (show verse)

Samson said to them, “This time I won’t be responsible when I harm the Philistines.”

Judges 15:4 (show verse)

So he went out and caught 300 foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

Judges 15:5 (show verse)

Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Judges 15:6 (show verse)

Then the Philistines asked, “Who did this?”

They were told, “It was Samson, the Timnite’s son-in-law, because he has taken Samson’s wife and given her to another man.” So the Philistines went to her and her father and burned them to death.

Judges 15:7 (show verse)

Then Samson told them, “Because you did this, I swear that I won’t rest until I have taken vengeance on you.”

Judges 15:8 (show verse)

He tore them limb from limb with a great slaughter, and he went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

Judges 15:9 (show verse)

The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi.

Judges 15:10 (show verse)

So the men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us?”

They replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he did to us.”

Judges 15:11 (show verse)

Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?”

“I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.

Judges 15:12 (show verse)

They said to him, “We’ve come to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”

Judges 15:13 (show verse)

“No,” they said, “we won’t kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.

Judges 15:14 (show verse)

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord took control of him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like burnt flax and his bonds fell off his wrists.

Judges 15:15 (show verse)

He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed 1,000 men with it.

Judges 15:16 (show verse)

Then Samson said:

With the jawbone of a donkey
I have piled them in a heap.
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have killed 1,000 men.

Judges 15:17 (show verse)

When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Ramath-lehi.

Judges 15:18 (show verse)

He became very thirsty and called out to the Lord: “You have accomplished this great victory through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

Judges 15:19 (show verse)

So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

Judges 15:20 (show verse)

And he judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines.