Judges 15:9 - 15:20

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9 Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah and spread out in Lehi. 10 So the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “We have come up to bind Samson in order to do to him as he did to us.” 11 Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12 And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may give you into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you yourselves will not kill me.” 13 So they said to him, “No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hands; yet surely we will not put you to death.” Then they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. 14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of Yahweh came upon him mightily so that the ropes that were on his arms were as flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds dropped from his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he sent forth his hand and took it and struck down 1,000 men with it. 16 Then Samson said,

“With the jawbone of a donkey,

Heaps upon heaps,

With the jawbone of a donkey

I have struck down 1,000 men.”

17 Now it happened that when he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi. 18 Then he became very thirsty, and he called to Yahweh and said, “You have given this great salvation by the hand of Your slave, but now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” 19 So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi and water came out of it. Then he drank, and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

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