13 And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of Jehovah; and Jehovah gave them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

² And there was a certain man of Zoreah, of the family of the Danites, and his name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and did not bear.

³ And the Angel of Jehovah appeared to the woman, and said to her, Behold now, thou art barren and bearest not; but thou shalt conceive and bear a son.

⁴ And now beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.

⁵ For lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head; for the boy shall be a Nazarite of God from the womb; and he shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

⁶ And the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of an angel of God, very terrible; but I did not ask him whence he was, neither did he tell me his name.

⁷ And he said to me, Behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a son; and now drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not anything unclean; for the boy shall be a Nazarite of God from the womb to the day of his death.

⁸ Then Manoah prayed to Jehovah, and said, Ah Lord! let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, I pray thee, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born.

⁹ And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the Angel of God came again to the woman whilst she sat in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her.

¹⁰ Then the woman hasted and ran, and informed her husband, and said to him, Behold, the man has appeared to me, that came to me that day.

¹¹ And Manoah rose up and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Art thou the man that didst speak to the woman? And he said, I am.

¹² And Manoah said, When thy words then come to pass, what shall be the child's manner and his doing?

¹³ And the Angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware:

¹⁴ she shall not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither shall she drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean: all that I commanded her shall she observe.

¹⁵ And Manoah said to the Angel of Jehovah, I pray thee, let us detain thee, and we will make ready a kid of the goats for thee.

¹⁶ And the Angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, Though thou shouldest detain me, I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou shalt offer it up to Jehovah. For Manoah knew not that he was the Angel of Jehovah.

¹⁷ And Manoah said to the Angel of Jehovah, What is thy name, that when thy word cometh to pass we may do thee honour?

¹⁸ And the Angel of Jehovah said to him, How is it that thou askest after my name, seeing it is wonderful?

¹⁹ Then Manoah took the kid and the oblation, and offered it up to Jehovah upon the rock. And he did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on.

²⁰ And it came to pass, as the flame went up from off the altar towards the heavens, that the Angel of Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar; and Manoah and his wife looked on, and fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹ And the Angel of Jehovah appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that it was the Angel of Jehovah.

²² And Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

²³ But his wife said to him, If Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and an oblation at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would he at this time have told us [such things] as these.

²⁴ And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson. And the child grew, and Jehovah blessed him.

²⁵ And the Spirit of Jehovah began to move him at Mahaneh-Dan, between Zoreah and Eshtaol.

14 And Samson went down to Timnathah, and saw a woman in Timnathah of the daughters of the Philistines.

² And he went up, and told his father and his mother, and said, I have seen a woman in Timnathah of the daughters of the Philistines; and now take her for me as wife.

³ And his father and his mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of thy brethren, and among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the Philistines, the uncircumcised? And Samson said to his father, Take her for me, for she pleases me well.

⁴ And his father and his mother did not know that it was of Jehovah, that he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. Now at that time the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

⁵ And Samson went down, and his father and his mother, to Timnathah; and they came to the vineyards of Timnathah. And behold, a young lion roared against him;

⁶ and the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and he rent it as one rends a kid, and nothing was in his hand. And he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

⁷ And he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well.

⁸ And he returned after a time to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion; and behold, [there was] a swarm of bees in the carcase of the lion, and honey;

⁹ and he took it out in his hands, and went on, and ate as he went. And he came to his father and to his mother, and gave them, and they ate; but he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.

¹⁰ And his father went down to the woman, and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.

¹¹ And it came to pass when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions, and they were with him.

¹² And Samson said to them, Let me now propound a riddle to you; if ye clearly explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find [it] out, then I will give you thirty shirts, and thirty changes of garments.

¹³ But if ye cannot explain [it] to me, then shall ye give me thirty shirts, and thirty changes of garments. And they said to him, Propound thy riddle, that we may hear it.

¹⁴ And he said to them, Out of the eater came forth food, And out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days explain the riddle.

¹⁵ And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they said to Samson's wife, Persuade thy husband, that he may explain to us the riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire. Have ye invited us to impoverish us,—is it not [so]?

¹⁶ And Samson's wife wept before him, and said, Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not. Thou hast propounded the riddle to the children of my people, and hast not explained it to me. And he said to her, Behold, I have not explained it to my father nor my mother, and shall I explain it to thee?

¹⁷ And she wept before him the seven days, while they had the feast. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that he explained it to her, for she pressed him. And she explained the riddle to the children of her people.

¹⁸ And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, What is sweeter than honey, And what stronger than a lion? And he said to them, If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, Ye had not found out my riddle.

¹⁹ And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew of them thirty men, and took their spoil, and gave the changes of garments unto them that explained the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father's house.

²⁰ And Samson's wife was [given] to his companion, whom he had made his friend.

15 And it came to pass after a time, in the days of the wheat-harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid of the goats. And he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber; but her father would not suffer him to go in.

² And her father said, I verily thought that thou didst utterly hate her; therefore I gave her to thy companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Let her, I pray thee, be thine instead of her.

³ And Samson said to them, This time I am blameless toward the Philistines, though I do them harm.

⁴ And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between the two tails.

⁵ And he set the torches on fire, and let [them] run into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, and the olive gardens.

⁶ And the Philistines said, Who has done this? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion. And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire.

⁷ And Samson said to them, If ye act thus, for a certainty I will avenge myself on you, and then I will cease.

⁸ And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter. And he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the cliff Etam.

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

¹⁰ And the men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they said, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he has done to us.

¹¹ Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the cliff Etam, and said to Samson, Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over us? And what is this that thou hast done to us? And he said to them, As they did to me, so have I done to them.

¹² And they said to him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may give thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that ye will not fall on me yourselves.

¹³ And they spoke to him, saying, No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into their hand; but we certainly shall not put thee to death. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the cliff.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him. And the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him, and the cords that were on his arms became as threads of flax that are burned with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands.

¹⁵ And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand and took it, and slew with it a thousand men.

¹⁶ And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, a heap, two heaps, With the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men.

¹⁷ And it came to pass when he had ended speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-Lehi.

¹⁸ And he was very thirsty, and called on Jehovah, and said, Thou hast given by the hand of thy servant this great deliverance, and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?

¹⁹ And God clave the hallow rock which was in Lehi, and water came out of it. And he drank, and his spirit came again, and he revived. Therefore its name was called En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

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