And Manoah will say to the messenger of Jehovah, We will detain thee now, and we will do before thee a kid of the goats.

Now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord.

But his wife said to him, "If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now."

Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah, of the daughters of the Philistines;

When he got home, he told his father and mother, "A Philistine girl in Timnah has caught my eye. Now get her for my wife."

Now his father and mother did not realize this was the Lord's doing, because he was looking for an opportunity to stir up trouble with the Philistines (for at that time the Philistines were ruling Israel).

Then Samson said to them, “Let me now ask you a riddle; if you can tell me what it is within the seven days of the feast, and solve it, then I will give you thirty linen tunics (undergarments) and thirty changes of [outer] clothing.

On the seventh day, before sunset, the men of the city said to him:

What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?

So he said to them:

If you hadn’t plowed with my young cow,
you wouldn’t know my riddle now!

Now a short time after, at the time of the grain-cutting, Samson, taking with him a young goat, went to see his wife; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the bride's room. But her father would not let him go in.

And her father will say, Saying, I said that hating, thou didst hate her, and I will give her to thy companion: is not her small sister good above her? Now she shall be to thee in her stead.

And Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines, though I do them a displeasure.

And three thousand men of Judah go down unto the cleft of the rock Etam, and say to Samson, 'Hast thou now known that the Philistines are rulers over us? and what is this thou hast done to us?' And he saith to them, 'As they did to me, so I did to them.'

He was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, "You have given your servant this great victory. But now must I die of thirst and fall into hands of the Philistines?"

Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.

Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron.

Now after this, he was in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, named Delilah.

And Delilah will say to Samson, Announce now to me in what is thy great strength, and in what thou shalt be bound to humble thee.

Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he broke the cords as a string of tow breaks when it touches fire. So [the secret of] his strength was not discovered.

Delilah said to Samson, "Look, you deceived me and told me lies! Now tell me how you can be subdued."

So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him - The Philistines, are upon thee, Samson! Now, the liers in wait, were tarrying in an inner chamber. And he snapped them off his arms like a thread.

Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued." He said to her, "If you weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on the loom and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man."

And she said - The Philistines, are upon thee, Samson! And he awoke out of his sleep, and said - I will go out now, as time after time, and shake myself free: he, not knowing, that, Yahweh, had departed from him.

Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said:

Our god has handed over
our enemy Samson to us.

Now when their hearts were full of joy, they said, Send for Samson to make sport for us. And they sent for Samson out of the prison-house, and he made sport before them; and they put him between the pillars.

Now the temple was filled with men and women, and all the rulers of the Philistines were there. There were three thousand men and women on the roof watching Samson entertain.

And Samson will call to Jehovah, and will say, Lord Jehovah, remember me now, and strengthen me now but this once, O God, and I will avenge myself one vengeance for my two eyes of Philisteim.

Now there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah.

He said to his mother, "You know the eleven hundred pieces of silver which were stolen from you, about which I heard you pronounce a curse? Look here, I have the silver. I stole it, but now I am giving it back to you." His mother said, "May the Lord reward you, my son!"

He returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and she said, “I had truly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son (in his name) to make an image [carved from wood and plated with silver] and a cast image [of solid silver]; so now, I will return it to you.”

Now this man Micah owned a shrine. He made an ephod and some personal idols and hired one of his sons to serve as a priest.

Now there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite; and he was staying there.

Micah said, "Now I know God will make me rich, because I have this Levite as my priest."

And they will say to him, Ask now of God, and we shall know whether our way shall prosper which we go upon it.

The five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their kinsmen, "Do you realize that inside these houses are an ephod, some personal idols, a carved image, and a metal image? Decide now what you want to do."

Now the six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the sons of Dan, stood at the entrance of the gate.

Now the five men who went to spy out the land went up and entered there, and took the graven image and the ephod and household idols and the molten image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war.

And he said, You have taken my gods which I made, and my priest, and have gone away; what is there for me now? Why then do you say to me, What is your trouble?

Now the Danites took what Micah had made, as well as his priest, and came to Laish, where the people were undisturbed and unsuspecting. They struck them down with the sword and burned the city.

Now it came about in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah.

Now on the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and he prepared to go; and the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Sustain yourself with a piece of bread, and afterward you may go.”

And they will sit down and eat, they two together, and drink: and the girl's father will say to the man, Be willing, now, and lodge, and do good to thy heart.

And he will rise early in the morning in the fifth day, to go, and the girl's father will say, Strengthen now thy heart. And they lingered till the day declined, and they two will eat.

And when the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father in law, the damsel's father, said unto him, Behold, now the day draweth toward evening, I pray you tarry all night: behold, the day groweth to an end, lodge here, that thine heart may be merry; and to morrow get you early on your way, that thou mayest go home.

Because the man was unwilling to spend the night, he got up, left, and arrived opposite Jebus (now known as Jerusalem). He had with him a pair of saddled donkeys, along with his mistress.

They with Jebus, and the day gone down greatly; and the youth will say to his lord, Go, now, and we will turn to this city of the Jebusitcs, and we will lodge in it.

Then behold, an old man was coming out of the field from his work at evening. Now the man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was staying in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjamites.

As the old man looked up and saw the traveling man in the public square of the city, he asked, "Now then, where are you headed? And where are you from?"

The Levite said to him, "We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That's where I'm from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I'm heading home. But no one has invited me into their home.

Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.

Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.

(Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel were gone up to Mizpeh.) Then said the children of Israel, Tell us, how was this wickedness?

Look, all of you are Israelites. Give your judgment and verdict here and now.”

Now this is what we will do to Gibeah: We will attack the city as the lot dictates.

Now, hand over the good-for-nothings in Gibeah so we can execute them and purge Israel of wickedness." But the Benjaminites refused to listen to their Israelite brothers.

Now the sons of Israel arose, went up to Bethel, and inquired of God and said, “Who shall go up first for us to battle against the sons of Benjamin?” Then the Lord said, “Judah shall go up first.”

Now the sons of Israel had gone up, and wept before Yahweh, until the evening, and asked of Yahweh, saying, Shall I again draw near to battle against the sons of Benjamin, my brother? And Yahweh said, Go up against him.

Now there was an appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liers in wait, that they should make a great flame with smoke rise up out of the city.

So the men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill about thirty men of Israel, for they said, “Certainly they are defeated before us as in the first battle!”

Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife.

So they asked, "Who from all the Israelite tribes did not assemble before the Lord at Mizpah?" Now it just so happened no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the gathering.

Now there were among the people of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had never had sex relations with a man; these they took to their tents in Shiloh in the land of Canaan.

Now, the assembly, had grieved for Benjamin, - because Yahweh had made a breach, in the tribes of Israel.

It shall come about, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we shall say to them, ‘Give them to us voluntarily, because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle, nor did you give them to them, else you would now be guilty.’”