Judges 15:9-20 - Samson Defeats The Philistines

⁹ The Philistines went up, camped in Judah, and raided Lehi. ¹⁰ So the men of Judah said, “Why have you attacked us?”

They replied, “We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he did to us.”

¹¹ Then 3,000 men of Judah went to the cave at the rock of Etam, and they asked Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?”

“I have done to them what they did to me,” he answered.

¹² They said to him, “We’ve come to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.”

Then Samson told them, “Swear to me that you yourselves won’t kill me.”

¹³ “No,” they said, “we won’t kill you, but we will tie you up securely and hand you over to them.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and led him away from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him shouting. The Spirit of the Lord took control of him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like burnt flax and his bonds fell off his wrists. ¹⁵ He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand, took it, and killed 1,000 men with it. ¹⁶ Then Samson said:

With the jawbone of a donkey
I have piled them in a heap.
With the jawbone of a donkey
I have killed 1,000 men.

¹⁷ When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone and named that place Ramath-lehi. ¹⁸ He became very thirsty and called out to the Lord: “You have accomplished this great victory through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” ¹⁹ So God split a hollow place in the ground at Lehi, and water came out of it. After Samson drank, his strength returned, and he revived. That is why he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. ²⁰ And he judged Israel 20 years in the days of the Philistines.