Samson

The woman bore a son, and named him Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

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

Then his father and his mother said to him, “Is there never a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?” Samson said to his father, “Get her for me; for she pleases me well.”

Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah: and behold, a young lion roared against him.

He went down, and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson well.

His father went down to the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.

Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle now. If you can declare it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing;

On the seventh day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Is it not so?”

Samson’s wife wept before him, and said, “You just hate me, and don’t love me. You have told a riddle to the children of my people, and haven’t told it to me.” He said to her, “Behold, I haven’t told it my father nor my mother, and shall I tell you?”

But Samson’s wife was given to his companion, whom he had used as his friend.

But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat; and he said, “I will go in to my wife into the room.” But her father wouldn’t allow him to go in.

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

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

Then 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.

Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease.”

The 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.”

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, 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 have I done to them.”

They 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 fall on me yourselves.”

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

Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a prostitute, and went in to her.

The Gazites were told, “Samson is here!” They surrounded him, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, “Wait until morning light, then we will kill him.”

Samson lay until midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.

Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and what you might be bound to afflict you.”

Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man.”

Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, “The Philistines are on you, Samson!” He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.