7Jephthah led Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and he was buried in one of the towns of Gilead.
8After him, Ibzan of Bethlehemb led Israel. 9He had thirty sons, and he married off thirty daughters outside the clan and brought in thirty girls from outside the clan for his sons. He led Israel seven years. 10Then Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.
11After him, Elon the Zebulunite led Israel; he led Israel for ten years. 12Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried in Aijalon, in the territory of Zebulun.
13After him, Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite led Israel. 14He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy jackasses. He led Israel for eight years. 15Then Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died. He was buried in Pirathon, in the territory of Ephraim, on the hill of the Amalekites.
13 The Israelites again did what was offensive to the LORD, and the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2There was a certain man from Zorah, of the stock of Dan, whose name was Manoah. His wife was barren and had borne no children. 3An angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, “You are barren and have borne no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4Now be careful not to drink wine or other intoxicant, or to eat anything unclean. 5For you are going to conceive and bear a son; let no razor touch his head, for the boy is to be a nazirite to God from the womb on. He shall be the first to deliver Israel from the Philistines.”
6The woman went and told her husband, “A man of God came to me; he looked like an angel of God, very frightening. I did not ask him where he was from, nor did he tell me his name. 7He said to me, ‘You are going to conceive and bear a son. Drink no wine or other intoxicant, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy is to be a nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death!”’
8Manoah pleaded with the LORD. “Oh, my Lord!” he said, “please let the man of God that You sent come to us again, and let him instruct us how to act with the child that is to be born.” 9God heeded Manoah’s plea, and the angel of God came to the woman again. She was sitting in the field and her husband Manoah was not with her. 10The woman ran in haste to tell her husband. She said to him, “The man who came to me beforea has just appeared to me.” 11Manoah promptly followed his wife. He came to the man and asked him: “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” “Yes,” he answered. 12Then Manoah said, “May your words soon come true! What rules shall be observed for the boy?” 13The angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “The woman must abstain from all the things against which I warned her. 14She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, or drink wine or other intoxicant, or eat anything unclean. She must observe all that I commanded her.”
15Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “Let us detain you and prepare a kid for you.” 16But the angel of the LORD said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I shall not eat your food; and if you present a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.”—For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of the LORD. 17So Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name? We should like to honor you when your words come true.” 18The angel said to him, “You must not ask for my name; it is unknowable!”
19Manoah took the kid and the meal offering and offered them up on the rock to the LORD; b-and a marvelous thing happened-b while Manoah and his wife looked on. 20As the flames leaped up from the altar toward the sky, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flames of the altar, while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they flung themselves on their faces to the ground.—21The angel of the LORD never appeared again to Manoah and his wife.—Manoah then realized that it had been an angel of the LORD. 22And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen a divine being.” 23But his wife said to him, “Had the LORD meant to take our lives, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and meal offering from us, nor let us see all these things; and He would not have made such an announcement to us.”
24The woman bore a son, and she named him Samson. The boy grew up, and the LORD blessed him. 25The spirit of the LORD first moved him in the encampment of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
14 Once Samson went down to Timnah; and while in Timnah, he noticed a girl among the Philistine women. 2On his return, he told his father and mother, “I noticed one of the Philistine women in Timnah; please get her for me as a wife.” 3His father and mother said to him, “Is there no one among the daughters of your own kinsmen and among all oura people, that you must go and take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson answered his father, “Get me that one, for she is the one that pleases me.” 4His father and mother did not realize that this was the LORD’s doing: He was seeking a pretext against the Philistines, for the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time. 5So Samson and his father and mother went down to Timnah.
When heb came to the vineyards of Timnah [for the first time], a full-grown lion came roaring at him. 6The spirit of the LORD gripped him, and he tore him asunder with his bare hands as one might tear a kid asunder; but he did not tell his father and mother what he had done. 7Then he went down and spoke to the woman, and she pleased Samson.
8Returning the following year to marry her, he turned aside to look at the remains of the lion; and in the lion’s skeleton he found a swarm of bees, and honey. 9He scooped it into his palms and ate it as he went along. When he rejoined his father and mother, he gave them some and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scooped the honey out of a lion’s skeleton.
10So his father came down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there, as young men used to do. 11When theyc saw him, they designated thirty companions to be with him. 12Then Samson said to them, “Let me propound a riddle to you. If you can give me the right answer during the seven days of the feast, I shall give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing; 13but if you are not able to tell it to me, you must give me thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing.” And they said to him, “Ask your riddle and we will listen.” 14So he said to them:
“Out of the eater came something to eat,
Out of the strong came something sweet.”
For three days they could not answer the riddle.
15On the seventhd day, they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband to provide us with the answer to the riddle; else we shall put you and your father’s household to the fire; have you invited us heree in order to impoverish us?” 16Then Samson’s wife harassed him with tears, and she said, “You really hate me, you don’t love me. You asked my countrymen a riddle, and you didn’t tell me the answer.” He replied, “I haven’t even told my father and mother; shall I tell you?” 17During the rest of the seven days of the feast she continued to harass him with her tears, and on the seventh day he told her, because she nagged him so. And she explained the riddle to her countrymen. 18On the seventh day, before the sunset, the townsmen said to him:
“What is sweeter than honey,
And what is stronger than a lion?”
He responded:
“Had you not plowed with my heifer,
You would not have guessed my riddle!”
19The spirit of the LORD gripped him. He went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of its men. He stripped them and gave the sets of clothing to those who had answered the riddle. And he left in a rage for his father’s house.
20Samson’s wife then married one of those who had been his wedding companions.
15 Some time later, in the season of the wheat
