Daily Text and Bible Reading: Sunday, March 22 [Press play below]

14.1 Then Samson went down to Timnah, and in Timnah he saw a Philistine woman.
14.2 So he went up and told his father and mother: “In Timnah a Philistine woman caught my eye, and I want you to get her for me as a wife.”
14.3 But his father and mother said to him: “Can you not find a woman among your relatives and among all our people? Must you go and take a wife from among the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father: “Get her for me, because she is the right one for me.”
14.4 His father and mother did not realize that this was from Jehovah, for He was looking for an opportunity against the Philistines, as the Philistines were ruling over Israel at that time.
14.5 So Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When he reached the vineyards of Timnah, why look! a lion came roaring at him.
14.6 Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him, and he tore it in two, just as someone tears a young goat in two with his bare hands. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.
14.7 Then he went down and spoke to the woman, and she was still the right one in Samson’s eyes.
14.8 Later when he was going back to take her home, he turned aside to look at the dead body of the lion, and there in the lion’s carcass was a swarm of bees and honey.
14.9 So he scraped the honey out into his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he rejoined his father and mother, he gave them some to eat. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the carcass of a lion.
14.10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson held a banquet there, for that was what the young men used to do.
14.11 When they saw him, they brought 30 groomsmen to accompany him.
14.12 Then Samson said to them: “Please let me tell you a riddle. If during the seven days of the banquet you solve it and tell me the answer, I will have to give you 30 linen garments and 30 outfits of clothing.
14.13 But if you are unable to tell me the answer, you must give me 30 linen garments and 30 outfits of clothing.” They said: “Tell us your riddle; we want to hear it.”
14.14 So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” They were unable to solve the riddle for three days.
14.15 On the fourth day, they said to Samson’s wife: “Trick your husband so that he will tell us the answer to the riddle. Otherwise, we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Did you invite us here to take our possessions?”
14.16 So Samson’s wife wept over him and said: “You must hate me; you do not love me. You told a riddle to my people, but you have not told the answer to me.” At this he said to her: “Why, I have not told it even to my own father and mother! Should I tell it to you?”
14.17 But she kept weeping over him the rest of the seven-day banquet. He finally told her on the seventh day, because she had pressured him. Then she told her people the answer to the riddle.
14.18 So on the seventh day before the sun set, the men of the city said to him “What is sweeter than honey, And what is stronger than a lion?” He replied to them: “If you had not plowed with my young cow, You would not have solved my riddle.”
14.19 Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down 30 of their men and took their clothing and gave the outfits to those who had answered the riddle. He was furious as he went back up to his father’s house.
14.20 Samson’s wife was then given to one of his groomsmen who had accompanied him.
15.1 After a while, in the days of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing a young goat. He said: “I wish to go in to my wife in the bedroom.” But her father did not allow him to go in.
15.2 Her father said: “I thought, ‘You must surely hate her.’ So I gave her to your groomsman. Is not her younger sister more attractive than she is? Please, take her instead.”
15.3 However, Samson said to them: “This time I cannot be blamed by the Philistines for harming them.”
15.4 So Samson went and caught 300 foxes. Then he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put one torch between each pair of tails.
15.5 Then he set fire to the torches and sent the foxes out into the fields of standing grain of the Philistines. He set on fire everything from sheaf to standing grain, as well as the vineyards and the olive groves.
15.6 The Philistines asked: “Who did this?” They were told: “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his groomsman.” At that the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire.
15.7 Then Samson said to them: “If this is how you act, I will not quit until I take revenge on you.”
15.8 Then he struck them down one after the other with a great slaughter, after which he went down and stayed in a cave of the crag Etam.
15.9 Later the Philistines came up and camped in Judah and were tramping about in Lehi.
15.10 Then the men of Judah said: “Why have you come up against us?” to which they answered: “We have come up to capture Samson, to do to him just as he did to us.”
15.11 So 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cave of the crag Etam and said to Samson: “Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? So why have you done this to us?” He said to them: “As they did to me, so I did to them.”
15.12 But they said to him: “We have come to capture you and to hand you over to the Philistines.” Then Samson said: “Swear to me that you yourselves will not assault me.”
15.13 They said to him: “No, we will only tie you and hand you over to them, but we will not put you to death.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the crag.
15.14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted triumphantly at meeting him. Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him, and the ropes on his arms became like linen threads that were scorched with fire, and his fetters melted off his hands.
15.15 He now found a fresh jawbone of a male donkey; he reached out and grabbed it and struck down 1,000 men with it.
15.16 Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey—one heap, two heaps! With the jawbone of a donkey I struck down 1,000 men.”
15.17 When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone away and called that place Ramath-lehi.
15.18 Then he became very thirsty, and he called on Jehovah and said: “It was you who gave this great salvation into the hand of your servant. But now am I to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
15.19 So God split open a hollow that was in Lehi, and water flowed from it. When he drank, his spirit returned and he revived. That is why he named the place En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.
15.20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines for 20 years.
16.1 One time Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and he went in to her.
16.2 The Gazites were told: “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded him and lay in ambush for him all night long in the city gate. They stayed quiet the whole night, saying to themselves: “When daylight comes, we will kill him.”
16.3 However, Samson kept lying there until midnight. Then he got up at midnight and grabbed the doors of the city gate and the two side posts and pulled them out along with the bar. He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that faces Hebron.
16.4 After that he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.
16.5 So the lords of the Philistines approached her and said: “Trick him and find out what gives him such great strength and how we can overpower him and tie him and subdue him. For this we will each give you 1,100 silver pieces.”
16.6 Delilah later said to Samson: “Please tell me where your great power comes from and what can be used to tie you and subdue you.”
16.7 Samson said to her: “If they tie me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried out, I will grow as weak as an ordinary man.”
16.8 So the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried out, and she tied him with them.
16.9 Now they set an ambush in the inner room, and she called out to him: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” At that he tore apart the bowstrings, just as easily as a thread of flax comes apart when it touches fire. The secret of his power did not become known.
16.10 Then Delilah said to Samson: “Look! You have fooled me and told me lies. Now tell me, please, what can be used to tie you.”
16.11 So he said to her: “If they tie me up with new ropes that have not been used for work, I will grow as weak as an ordinary man.”
16.12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and called out: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (All the while the ambush was set in the inner room.) At that he tore them off his arms like threads.
16.13 After that Delilah said to Samson: “Up until now you have fooled me and told me lies. Tell me what can be used to tie you.” Then he said to her: “If you weave the seven braids of my head with the warp thread.”
16.14 So she fixed them with a pin and called out to him: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” So he woke up from his sleep and pulled out the loom pin and the warp thread.
16.15 She now said to him: “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? These three times you have fooled me and have not told me the source of your great power.”
16.16 Because day after day she kept nagging him and pressuring him, he was weary to the point of dying.
16.17 So he finally opened his heart to her, saying: “A razor has never touched my head, because I am a Nazirite of God from birth. If I am shaved, my power will leave me and I will grow weak and become like all other men.”
16.18 When Delilah saw that he had opened his heart to her, she immediately summoned the Philistine lords, saying: “Come up this time, for he has opened his heart to me.” So the Philistine lords came up to her, bringing the money with them.
16.19 She made him fall asleep on her knees; then she called the man and had him shave off the seven braids of his head. After that she began to have control over him, for his power was leaving him.
16.20 Now she called out: “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” He woke up from his sleep and said: “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that Jehovah had left him.
16.21 So the Philistines seized him and bored his eyes out. Then they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with two copper fetters, and he became a grinder of grain in the prison.
16.22 But the hair of his head started to grow back again after he had been shaved.
16.23 The Philistine lords gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, for they were saying: “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand!”
16.24 When the people saw him, they praised their god and said: “Our god has given into our hand our enemy, the one who devastated our land and killed so many of us.”
16.25 Because their heart was cheerful, they said: “Call Samson to provide us some amusement.” So they called Samson out of the prison to entertain them; they made him stand between the pillars.
16.26 Then Samson said to the boy holding him by the hand: “Let me feel the pillars that support the house, so that I can lean against them.”
16.27 (Incidentally, the house was full of men and women. All the Philistine lords were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women who were looking on while Samson provided amusement.)
16.28 Samson now called out to Jehovah: “Sovereign Lord Jehovah, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, just this once, O God, and let me take revenge on the Philistines for one of my two eyes.”
16.29 Then Samson braced himself against the two middle pillars that supported the house, and he leaned on them with his right hand on one and his left hand on the other.
16.30 Samson called out: “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and the house fell on the lords and all the people in it. So he killed more at his death than he had killed during his life.
16.31 Later his brothers and all his father’s family came down to take him back. They brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel for 20 years.