So he said, "Go!" He sent her away for two months. She left with her friends and cried there on the mountains because she would never marry.

Later, after the two months were concluded, she returned to her father, and he fulfilled what he had solemnly vowed and she never married. That's how the custom arose in Israel

that for four days out of every year the Israeli women would go to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite in commemoration.

A little while later, the army of Ephraim was mustered, and they crossed to Zaphon. They confronted Jephthah and asked, "Why did you cross over to fight the Ammonites without calling us to accompany you? We're going to burn your house down around you!"

But Jephthah replied to them, "My army and I were engaged in a serious fight with the Ammonites. I called for you, but you didn't deliver me from their control.

When I saw that you wouldn't be delivering me, I took my own life in my hands, crossed over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into my control. So why have you come here today to fight me?"

they would order him, "Pronounce the word "Shibboleth' right now." If he said "Sibboleth," not being able to pronounce it correctly, they would seize him and slaughter him there at the fords of the Jordan River. During those days 42,000 descendants of Ephraim died that way.

He had 30 sons and 30 daughters, but he gave his daughters in marriage to outsiders and brought in 30 outsiders for his sons. He governed Israel for seven years,

Some time later, the Israelis again practiced what the LORD considered to be evil, so the LORD handed them over into the domination of the Philistines for 40 years.

There was one man from Zorah, from the family of the descendants of Dan, whose name was Manoah. Since his wife was infertile, she hadn't borne children.

One day the angel of the LORD presented himself to the woman. "Hello!" he greeted her. "Though you are infertile at this time and haven't borne a child, you're about to conceive and give birth to a son.

So be sure that you don't drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don't eat anything unclean

because surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son! Don't put a razor to his head, because the young man will be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from inside the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel from domination by the Philistines."

Then the woman went to tell her husband. She said, "A man of God appeared to me. He looked like what an angel of God would look like very frightening. I didn't ask him where he had come from and he didn't tell me his name.

He told me, "Surprise! you're going to conceive and give birth to a son!' and as for you, "Be sure that you don't drink wine or anything intoxicating, and don't eat anything unclean,' "because the young man will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from inside the womb' until the day he dies."

So Manoah prayed to the LORD, "Please, Lord, have the man of God whom you sent before come again so he can instruct us what to do on behalf of the child who is to be born."

God listened to Manoah's request, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she was sitting out in the pasture. But her husband Manoah wasn't with her,

so the woman ran quickly to tell her husband, "Look! The man who came the other day appeared to me!"

So Manoah got up quickly and followed his wife, and when he came to the man he told him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He replied, "I am."

Manoah asked, "Now, when what you've said occurs, what is to be the young man's way of life and work?"

The angel of the LORD replied to Manoah, "Just have your wife be careful to carry out everything that I told her.

She must not consume anything extracted from grape vines, including wine or anything intoxicating, and she must not eat anything unclean, doing everything that I commissioned her to do."

Manoah responded to the angel of the LORD, "Please, let us detain you while we prepare a young goat for you."

The angel of the LORD answered Manoah, "If you detain me, I won't be eating your food, but if you prepare a burnt offering, you'll be making a sacrifice to the LORD." The angel of the LORD said this because Manoah didn't know that he was the angel of the LORD.

So Manoah prepared a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a boulder to the LORD, who kept on performing miracles while Manoah and his wife watched continually.

When the burnt offering was engulfed in flames that sprang up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame that came from the altar. When Manoah and his wife observed this, they collapsed on their faces to the ground.

The angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife, and then Manoah knew confidently that the visitor had been the angel of the LORD.

Then Manoah told his wife, "We're going to die for sure, because we've seen God!"

But his wife replied to him, "If the LORD had intended to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from us, he wouldn't have shown us all these things, and he wouldn't have permitted us to hear things like this, now would he?"

Later on, the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew strong and the LORD blessed him.

Then the Spirit of the LORD began to rouse him where the tribe of Dan was encamped, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

A while later, Samson went down to Timnah and observed a woman in Timnah who was of Philistine origin.

His father and mother asked him, "Isn't there a woman suitable among the daughters of your relatives or among all of our people, since you're going to get your wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?"

But Samson retorted to his father, "Get her for me, since she looks fine to me." Meanwhile, his father and mother did not know that she was from the LORD, because he had been seeking a favorable opportunity concerning the Philistines, since the Philistines were dominating Israel at that time.

The Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he ripped the lion apart as one might dissect a young goat, even though he carried nothing in his hand. But he didn't tell his father and mother what he had done.

Then he went down and talked to the woman, and she looked fine to Samson.

When he came back later to marry her, he turned aside to observe the lion's carcass. Amazingly, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, complete with honey.

So he scraped some out into his hands and went on his way, eating all the while. When he met his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it, too. But he didn't inform them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.

Later on, when his father went down to visit the woman, Samson threw a party there, since young men customarily did this.

When they saw him, they brought 30 companions to accompany him.

But if you don't solve it, then you'll give me 30 linen garments and 30 formal garments." "Tell us your riddle and we'll solve it," they responded.

So he told them: From the eater came something edible; from the strong something sweet. For three days they couldn't solve the riddle.

The next day, they told Samson's wife, "Coax your husband to explain the riddle or we'll set fire to your father's house with you in it! You've invited us here to make us paupers, haven't you?"

So Samson's wife cried in front of him and accused him, "You only hate me. You don't love me. You've told a riddle to my relatives, but you haven't told the solution to me." Samson responded, "Look, I haven't told my parents, either. Why should I tell you?"

So she kept on crying in front of him for the entire seven days of the wedding party. On the seventh day he told the solution to her because she nagged him, and then she told the solution to the riddle to her relatives.

Then the men of the city answered him just before sunset on the seventh day: "What is sweeter than honey? What are stronger than lions?" Samson responded, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have solved my riddle."

Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, killed 30 men, took their belongings, and gave the garments to those who had told him the solution to the riddle. He remained furious, left for his father's house,

and Samson's wife went to the best man at his wedding.

A while later during the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife, bringing along a young goat, and told his father-in-law, "I'm going into my wife's room." But her father wouldn't give permission for him to go.

Her father said, "Because I honestly thought that you hated her deeply, I gave her in marriage to your best man. Isn't her younger sister better than she? Please then, let her be yours instead."

Samson replied to them, "This time I'll be blameless when I do something evil to the Philistines."

Then the Philistines demanded, "Who did this?" Someone said, "Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite, because his father-in-law took Samson's wife and gave her to the best man at Samson's wedding." In retaliation, the Philistines came up and burned her and her father to death.

Samson replied to them, "Because you did this, I'm not going to stop until I get my revenge against you!"

So he attacked them ruthlessly in a massive slaughter, then left to live in the caves of Etam.

The leading men of Judah asked, "Why have you invaded us?" They replied, "We're here to arrest Samson. Then we're going to do to him what he did to us."

In response, 3,000 soldiers from the tribe of Judah went down to the caves of the rock of Etam and asked Samson, "Don't you know that the Philistines have us in their control? What have you done to us?" "I did to them what they did to me," he answered.

They responded, "We've come here to arrest you and transfer you to the custody of the Philistines." Samson told them, "Promise me that you won't kill me."

So they said, "No, we won't. But we're going to tie you up securely and transfer you to their custody. But we won't kill you." Then they bound him with two ropes and brought him up from the caves.

When Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, so that the ropes that bound him were like flax that's been burned by fire, and his bonds dissolved.

He happened upon a jawbone from a putrefying donkey, reached out to grab it, and killed 1,000 men with it.

Aferward, he became thirsty, called out to the LORD, and told him, "So, you provided this great deliverance at the hands of your servant, but now I'm to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

So God split a hollow place that's in Lehi, and water sprang out of it. After he had taken a drink, his strength returned, and he revived. That's why it was named "En-hakkore," which is in Lehi to this day.

Sometime later, Samson went to Gaza, saw a prostitute there, and went in to have sex with her.

When the Gazites were informed, "Samson has come here!" they surrounded him, intending to lay in wait for him at the city gate throughout the entire night. They kept quiet all night, telling each other, "At first light, let's kill him!"

Meanwhile, Samson had sex until midnight, then at midnight he got up, grabbed the doors, the two door posts, and the bars of the city gate, and uprooted them. He put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the mountain opposite Hebron.

The Philistine officials approached her and told her, "Entice him to discover where his great strength is, and how we can overpower him. We intend to tie him up and torture him. We'll each pay you 1,100 silver coins."

So Delilah asked Samson, "Please tell me the secret to your great strength and how you may be tied up and tortured."

Some time later, Delilah told Samson, "Look here! You've been mocking me and lying to me. Now please tell me how you can be tied up."

Later on, Delilah told Samson, "You're still mocking me and telling me lies! Tell me how to tie you up!" He answered her, "If you weave the seven locks on my head into a loom and fasten it with a peg, then I will become weak and just like any other human being."

Some time later, she asked him, "How can you keep saying "I love you!' when your heart isn't with me? These three times you've lied to me and haven't told me where your great strength lies."

She nagged him every day with this speech, pestering him until he was annoyed nearly to death.

When Delilah realized that he had disclosed everything to her, she sent for the Philistine officials and told them, "Hurry up and come here at once, because he has told me everything." So the Philistine officials went to her and brought their money with them.

So she enticed him to fall asleep on her lap, called for a man to shave off his seven locks of hair from his head, and so began to humiliate him. Then his strength abandoned him.

When she cried out, "The Philistines are attacking you, Samson!" he woke from his sleep and told himself, "I'll go out like I did at other times like this and shake myself free." But he didn't know that the LORD had abandoned him.

Then the Philistines grabbed him, gouged out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza, tied him up in bronze chains, and made him grind grain in their prison.

But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved off.

Some time later, the Philistine officials got together to present a magnificent sacrifice to their god Dagon, and to throw a party, because they were claiming, "Our god has given Samson into our control!"

Then Samson cried out to the LORD, "Lord GOD, please remember me. And please strengthen me this one time, God, so that I can repay the Philistines right now for my two eyes."

Then Samson grabbed the two middle pillars upon which the house rested and braced himself against them with one pillar in his right hand and the other in his left.

Then Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" He strained with all his strength until the building collapsed on the officials and every person in it. As a result, the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed during his lifetime.

He told his mother, "Do you remember those 1,100 silver coins that were stolen from you and about which you uttered a curse when I could hear it? Well, I have the silver. I took it." So she replied, "May my son be blessed by the LORD."

Her son gave back the 1,100 silver coins to his mother, and she said, "I'm totally giving this silver from my hand to the LORD so my son can make a carved image and a cast image. So I'm returning it to you."

When he had returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 of the silver coins and handed them over to a silversmith. He crafted them into a carved image and into a cast image, and they were set up in Micah's house.

Back in those days, Israel didn't yet have a king, so each person did whatever seemed right in his own opinion.

A young male descendant of Levi happened to be visiting there from Bethlehem in the territory of Judah.

The man had left his city Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could. As he traveled along, he eventually arrived at Micah's house in the mountainous region of Ephraim, looking for work.

Micah asked him, "Where did you come from?" He replied, "I'm a descendant of Levi from Bethlehem in Judah, and I'm going to stay temporarily wherever I can find a place."

So Micah replied, "Come live with me! You can be a spiritual father to me, as well as a priest. I'll pay you ten silver coins a year, plus a priestly uniform and an income." So the descendant of Levi moved in.

The descendant of Levi agreed to live with the man, and the young man became like one of the family.

Back in those days, Israel didn't have a king yet, and during that time the tribe of Dan had been seeking a territorial inheritance to live in, because up until that time no territory had been allotted to them as a possession among the tribes of Israel.

So the tribe of Dan sent from their families five valiant men of their number from Zorah and Eshtaol to scout the land and search through it. Following their orders, which were "Go and scout the land," they came to the mountainous region of Ephraim, arrived at Micah's home, and stayed there.

As they approached Micah's home, they recognized the voice of the young male descendant of Levi. They turned aside from there and spoke to him, asking him, "Who brought you here? What work are you doing here? And what's your business here?"

The priest responded to them, "Travel in peace. The mission that you're to accomplish is from the LORD."

So the five men left and went to Laish, and observed the people who were living there carefree, as Sidonians tend to do, in peace and quiet. There was no ruler in the land oppressing them for any reason. They were living far away from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone.

When they returned to their relatives at Zorah and Eshtaol, their relatives asked them, "What's your report?"

They replied, "Let's get going and attack them. We've scouted out the land and look! it's a very good one. Why should we sit still? We can't wait to go back, invade, and take over the land.

They went out and encamped at Kiriath-jearim in the territory of Judah. (That's why they call the place Mahaneh-dan to this day. It lies west of Kiriath-jearim.)

They proceeded from there to the mountainous region of Ephraim and arrived at Micah's house.

Then the five men who had gone to scout out the territory of Laish told their relatives, "Are you aware that in these houses there's an ephod, some household idols, a carved image, and a cast image? You know what you need to do."

So they turned aside from there, went to Micah's house, and greeted him.