Judges 15 Free Bible Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
1 Some time later when the wheat was being harvested, Samson went to pay his wife a visit, taking with him a young goat as a present. “I want to go to my wife in her bedroom,” he said when he arrived, but her father would not let him go in.
1 But 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.
2 “I thought you must totally hate her, so I gave her to your best man,” he told Samson. “But her younger sister is even more attractive—why don't you marry her instead?”
2 Her 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.”
3 “This time I can't be blamed for the trouble I'm going to cause the Philistines,” Samson declared.
3 Samson said to them, “This time I will be blameless in the case of the Philistines when I harm them.”
4 He went and caught three hundred foxes and tied their tails together, two by two.
4 Samson 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.
5 He attached a torch to each of the tied tails and set them on fire. Then he let them loose in the grain fields of the Philistines, setting fire to all the grain, harvested and unharvested, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
5 When he had set the torches on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.
6 “Who did this?” the Philistines asked. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah,” they were told. “That man gave Samson's wife to Samson's best man.” So the Philistines went and burned her and her father to death.
6 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 burned her and her father with fire.
7 Samson told them, “If this is the way you're going to act, then I won't stop until I take my revenge on you!”
7 Samson said to them, “If you behave like this, surely I will take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.”
8 He attacked them violently, killing them, and then left to go and live in a cave at the rock of Etam.
8 He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock.
9 So the Philistine army came and camped in Judah, drawn up for battle near Lehi.
9 Then the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.
10 The people of Judah asked, “Why have you invaded us?” “We've come to capture Samson, to do to him what he's done to us!” they replied.
10 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.”
11 Three thousand men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam and asked Samson, “Don't you understand that the Philistines rule over us? What do you think you're doing to us?” “I only did what they did to me,” he replied.
11 Then 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.”
12 “Well, we've come to take you prisoner and hand you over to the Philistines,” they told him. “Just swear to me that you're not going to kill me yourselves,” Samson answered.
12 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 attack me yourselves.”
13 “No, we won't,” they assured him. “We'll only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines. We certainly aren't going to kill you!” They tied him using two new ropes and led him up from the rock.
13 They 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.
14 When Samson got close to Lehi, the Philistines ran towards him, shouting at him. But the Spirit of the Lord swept over him, and the ropes tying his arms together became as weak as burnt flax, and his hands broke free.
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. Then Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burned with fire; and his bands dropped from off his hands.
15 He grabbed the fresh jawbone of a donkey, using it to kill a thousand Philistines.
15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, put out his hand, took it, and struck a thousand men with it.
16 Then Samson declared, “With a donkey's jawbone I have piled the dead into heaps. With a donkey's jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”
16 Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men.”
17 After Samson had finished his speech, he threw away the jawbone, and he named the place Hill of the Jawbone.
17 When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.
18 Samson was now extremely thirsty, and he called out to the Lord, saying, “You have achieved this amazing victory through your servant, but now do I have to die of thirst and be captured by the heathen?”
18 He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh 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?”
19 So God split open a rock seam in Lehi, and water came out of it. Samson drank and his strength returned—he felt much better. That's why he named it the Spring of the Caller, and it's still there in Lehi to this very day.
19 But 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.
20 Samson led Israel as judge for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.
20 He judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
People
Samson
Nazirite from the womb, born to Manoah and his wife in answer to the angel's promise, whom the Spirit of the LORD empowered to strike the Philistines, who judged Israel twenty…
Cited in the guide: Judges 13:24; Judges 14:1; Judges 15:20
Cross references (16)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Genesis 38:17; Luke 15:29; Genesis 29:21; Genesis 6:4
- 2 Judges 14:20; Genesis 38:14; Judges 14:16; Acts 26:9
- 3 Judges 14:15
- 4 Lamentations 5:18; Psalm 63:10; Song of Songs 2:15
- 5 2 Samuel 14:30; Exodus 22:6
- 6 Judges 14:15; Proverbs 22:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Judges 12:1
- 7 Romans 12:19; Judges 14:19; Judges 14:4
- 8 Isaiah 25:10; Isaiah 63:6; Isaiah 63:3
- 9 Judges 15:19; Judges 15:17; Judges 15:14
- 11 Judges 14:4; Judges 13:1; Psalm 106:40–42; Deuteronomy 28:13; Deuteronomy 28:47–48
- 12 Matthew 27:2; 1 Kings 2:34; Judges 8:21; Acts 7:25; 1 Kings 2:25
- 14 Psalm 118:11; Judges 14:19; Judges 14:6; Judges 3:10; 1 Samuel 17:35
- 15 Joshua 23:10; Leviticus 26:8; Judges 3:31; 1 Samuel 17:49–50; 1 Corinthians 1:27–28
- 18 Psalm 3:7–8; 2 Corinthians 12:7–8; Psalm 22:14–15; 1 Samuel 17:26; Judges 16:28
- 19 Genesis 45:27; Isaiah 44:3; Psalm 34:6; Isaiah 40:29; Genesis 16:13
- 20 Judges 13:1; Judges 16:31; Judges 13:5; Hebrews 11:32
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences