Samson said to them, "Let me now put forth a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and figure it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.

She wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it happened on the seventh day, that he told her, because she pressed him hard; and she told the riddle to the children of her people.

But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a young goat; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the room." But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.

Samson said to them, "This time I will be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I harm them."

Samson said to them, "If you behave like this, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease."

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 fall on me yourselves."

They spoke to him, saying, "No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand; but surely we will not kill you." They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

The Gazites were told, "Samson is here." They surrounded him, and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city, and were quiet all night, saying, "Wait until morning light, then we will kill him."

Samson stayed in bed until midnight, and arose at midnight, and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is overlooking Hebron.

The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, "Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

He told her all his heart, and said to her, "No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man."

When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up this once, for he has told me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, and brought the money in their hand.

She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." He awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." But he didn't know that the LORD had departed from him.

and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, "Allow me to feel the pillars whereupon the house rests, that I may lean on them."

Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, who saw while Samson made sport.

Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.

Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial site of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.

He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother; and his mother said, "I most certainly dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make an engraved image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it to you."

Micah said to him, Dwell with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver by the year, and a suit of clothing, and your food. So the Levite went in.

Then Micah said, "Now I know that the LORD will do good to me, seeing I have a Levite as my priest."

The children of Dan sent of their family five men from their whole number, men of valor, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it; and they said to them, "Go, explore the land." They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and stayed there.

The priest said to them, "Go in peace. The LORD will watch over you on your journey."

They said, "Arise, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Will you do nothing? Do not hesitate to go and to enter in to possess the land.

The children of Dan said to him, "Do not let your voice be heard among us, or angry men will attack you, and you lose your life, with the lives of your household."

So they set up for themselves Micah's engraved image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

His master said to him, "We won't go into the city of a foreigner that is not of the children of Israel, but we will pass over to Gibeah."

He said to his servant, "Come and let us try to reach one of those places and we will spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah."

He said to him, "We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the farther side of the hill country of Ephraim. I am from there, and I went to Bethlehem in Judah. I am going to the house of the LORD; and there is no man who will take me into his home.

And the old man said, "Peace be to you. I will take care of all your needs; however, do not spend the night in the square."

Behold, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but do not do any such a disgraceful thing to this man."

But the men wouldn't listen to him: so the man laid hold of his concubine, and brought her out to them. And they raped her and abused her all night until the morning, and when the day began to dawn they let her go.

When he had come into his house, he took a knife, and took hold of his concubine and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.

It was so, that all who saw it said, "There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, take counsel, and speak."

Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was assembled as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, to the LORD at Mizpah.

The leaders of all the people, even of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of God, four hundred thousand footmen who drew sword.

I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed wickedness and disgrace in Israel.

Behold, you children of Israel, all of you, give your advice and counsel here."

All the people arose as one man, saying, "None of us will go to his tent, neither will any of us return to his house.

But now this is the thing which we will do to Gibeah: we will go up against it by lot;

and we will take ten men of one hundred throughout all the tribes of Israel, and one hundred of one thousand, and a thousand out of ten thousand, to get food for the people, that when they come to Gibeah of Benjamin, they may do to it according to all the disgrace that they have committed in Israel."

So all the men of Israel gathered against the city, united as one man.

The tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, "What wickedness is this that has happened among you?

Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; everyone could sling stones at a hair and not miss.

The men of Israel, besides Benjamin, were numbered four hundred thousand men who drew sword: all these were men of war.

Benjamin went forth against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men; all these drew the sword.

Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came to Bethel, and wept, and sat there before the LORD, and fasted that day until evening; and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD.

and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), "Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease?" The LORD said, "Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver him into your hand."

Israel set ambushes all around Gibeah.

All the men of Israel rose up out of their place, and set themselves in array at Baal Tamar. And the men of Israel in ambush rushed out of their place, even out of Maareh Geba.

There came over against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and the battle was severe; but they didn't know that disaster was close upon them.

The LORD struck Benjamin before Israel; and the children of Israel destroyed of Benjamin that day twenty-five thousand one hundred men: all armed with swords.

The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; and the ambushers drew themselves along, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke into the sky.

There fell of Benjamin eighteen thousand men; all these were men of valor.

So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty-five thousand swordsmen; all these were valiant fighters.

The men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword, both the entire city, and the livestock, and all that they found: moreover all the cities which they found they set on fire.

The children of Israel said, "Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly to the LORD?" For they had made a great oath concerning anyone who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah, saying, "He shall surely be put to death."

How shall we do for wives for those who remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?"

The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them.

It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, 'Grant them graciously to us, because we didn't take wives for each man in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.'"