Jephthah approached the Ammonites to fight with them, and the Lord handed them over to him.

When he saw her, he ripped his clothes and said, "Oh no! My daughter! You have completely ruined me! You have brought me disaster! I made an oath to the Lord, and I cannot break it."

She then said to her father, "Please grant me this one wish. For two months allow me to walk through the hills with my friends and mourn my virginity."

He said, "You may go." He permitted her to leave for two months. She went with her friends and mourned her virginity as she walked through the hills.

After two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin. Her tragic death gave rise to a custom in Israel.

The Ephraimites assembled and crossed over to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, "Why did you go and fight with the Ammonites without asking us to go with you? We will burn your house down right over you!"

Jephthah said to them, "My people and I were entangled in controversy with the Ammonites. I asked for your help, but you did not deliver me from their power.

When I saw that you were not going to help, I risked my life and advanced against the Ammonites, and the Lord handed them over to me. Why have you come up to fight with me today?"

Jephthah assembled all the men of Gilead and they fought with Ephraim. The men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because the Ephraimites insulted them, saying, "You Gileadites are refugees in Ephraim, living within Ephraim's and Manasseh's territory."

then they said to him, "Say 'Shibboleth!'" If he said, "Sibboleth" (and could not pronounce the word correctly), they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.

Jephthah led Israel for six years; then he died and was buried in his city in Gilead.

He had thirty sons. He arranged for thirty of his daughters to be married outside his extended family, and he arranged for thirty young women to be brought from outside as wives for his sons. Ibzan led Israel for seven years;

then he died and was buried in Bethlehem.

Then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried in Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.

He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He led Israel for eight years.

Then Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites.

There was a man named Manoah from Zorah, from the Danite tribe. His wife was infertile and childless.

The Lord's angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, "You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son.

Now be careful! Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean.

Look, you will conceive and have a son. You must never cut his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines."

The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger -- he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name.

He said to me, 'Look, you will conceive and have a son. So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. For the child will be dedicated to God from birth till the day he dies.'"

The woman ran at once and told her husband, "Come quickly, the man who visited me the other day has appeared to me!"

So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He said, "Yes."

Manoah said, "Now, when your announcement comes true, how should the child be raised and what should he do?"

She should not drink anything that the grapevine produces. She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any food that will make her ritually unclean. She should obey everything I commanded her to do."

The Lord's messenger said to Manoah, "If I stay, I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, you should offer it." (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the Lord's messenger.)

Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the Lord. The Lord's messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched.

As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the Lord's messenger went up in it while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown to the ground.

The Lord's messenger did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the Lord's messenger.

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."

Manoah's wife gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew and the Lord empowered him.

The Lord's spirit began to control him in Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Samson went down to Timnah, where a Philistine girl caught his eye.

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."

But his father and mother said to him, "Certainly you can find a wife among your relatives or among all our people! You should not have to go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines." But Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, because she is the right one for me."

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).

Samson went down to Timnah. When he approached the vineyards of Timnah, he saw a roaring young lion attacking him.

The Lord's spirit empowered him and he tore the lion in two with his bare hands as easily as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

Samson continued on down to Timnah and spoke to the girl. In his opinion, she was just the right one.

Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to see the lion's remains. He saw a swarm of bees in the lion's carcass, as well as some honey.

He scooped it up with his hands and ate it as he walked along. When he returned to his father and mother, he offered them some and they ate it. But he did not tell them he had scooped the honey out of the lion's carcass.

Samson said to them, "I will give you a riddle. If you really can solve it during the seven days the party lasts, I will give you thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes.

But if you cannot solve it, you will give me thirty linen robes and thirty sets of clothes." They said to him, "Let us hear your riddle."

On the fourth day they said to Samson's bride, "Trick your husband into giving the solution to the riddle. If you refuse, we will burn up you and your father's family. Did you invite us here to make us poor?"

So Samson's bride cried on his shoulder and said, "You must hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men a riddle, but you have not told me the solution." He said to her, "Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?"

The Lord's spirit empowered him. He went down to Ashkelon and murdered thirty men. He took their clothes and gave them to the men who had solved the riddle. He was furious as he went back home.

Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. He said to her father, "I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!" But her father would not let him enter.

Samson went and captured three hundred jackals and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair.

He lit the torches and set the jackals loose in the Philistines' standing grain. He burned up the grain heaps and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" They were told, "Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because the Timnite took Samson's bride and gave her to his best man." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father.

He struck them down and defeated them. Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

The Philistines went up and invaded Judah. They arrayed themselves for battle in Lehi.

Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?" He said to them, "I have only done to them what they have done to me."

They said to him, "We promise! We will only take you prisoner and hand you over to them. We promise not to kill you." They tied him up with two brand new ropes and led him up from the cliff.

When he arrived in Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they approached him. But the Lord's spirit empowered him. The ropes around his arms were like flax dissolving in fire, and they melted away from his hands.

He happened to see a solid jawbone of a donkey. He grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone down and named that place Ramath Lehi.

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?"

So God split open the basin at Lehi and water flowed out from it. When he took a drink, his strength was restored and he revived. For this reason he named the spring En Hakkore. It remains in Lehi to this very day.

Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute and went in to have sex with her.

The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here!" So they surrounded the town and hid all night at the city gate, waiting for him to leave. They relaxed all night, thinking, "He will not leave until morning comes; then we will kill him!"

Samson spent half the night with the prostitute; then he got up in the middle of the night and left. He grabbed the doors of the city gate, as well as the two posts, and pulled them right off, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of a hill east of Hebron.

The rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her and said to her, "Trick him! Find out what makes him so strong and how we can subdue him and humiliate him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred silver pieces."

So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me what makes you so strong and how you can be subdued and humiliated."

Samson said to her, "If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be just like any other man."

So the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings which had not been dried and they tied him up with them.

They hid in the bedroom and then she said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He snapped the bowstrings as easily as a thread of yarn snaps when it is put close to fire. 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."

He said to her, "If they tie me tightly with brand new ropes that have never been used, I will become weak and be just like any other man."

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) But he tore the ropes from his arms as if they were a piece of 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."

So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you will not share your secret with me? Three times you have deceived me and have not told me what makes you so strong."

She nagged him every day and pressured him until he was sick to death of it.

Finally he told her his secret. He said to her, "My hair has never been cut, for I have been dedicated to God from the time I was conceived. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like all other men."

When Delilah saw that he had told her his secret, she sent for the rulers of the Philistines, saying, "Come up here again, for he has told me his secret." So the rulers of the Philistines went up to visit her, bringing the silver in their hands.

She made him go to sleep on her lap and then called a man in to shave off the seven braids of his hair. She made him vulnerable and his strength left him.

She said, "The Philistines are here, Samson!" He woke up and thought, "I will do as I did before and shake myself free." But he did not realize that the Lord had left him.

The Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him in bronze chains. He became a grinder in the prison.

The rulers of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate. They said, "Our god has handed Samson, our enemy, over to us."

When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, "Our god has handed our enemy over to us, the one who ruined our land and killed so many of us!"

When they really started celebrating, they said, "Call for Samson so he can entertain us!" So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. They made him stand between two 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.

Samson took hold of the two middle pillars that supported the temple and he leaned against them, with his right hand on one and his left hand on the other.

Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines!" He pushed hard and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it. He killed many more people in his death than he had killed during his life.

His brothers and all his family went down and brought him back. They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had led Israel for twenty years.

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, "I solemnly dedicate this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son's benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image."

When he gave the silver back to his mother, she took two hundred pieces of silver to a silversmith, who made them into a carved image and a metal image. She then put them in Micah's house.

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.

This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to find another place to live. He came to the Ephraimite hill country and made his way to Micah's house.

Micah said to him, "Stay with me. Become my adviser and priest. I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, plus clothes and food."

Micah paid the Levite; the young man became his priest and lived in Micah's house.

In those days Israel had no king. And in those days the Danite tribe was looking for a place to settle, because at that time they did not yet have a place to call their own among the tribes of Israel.

The Danites sent out from their whole tribe five representatives, capable men from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. They said to them, "Go, explore the land." They came to the Ephraimite hill country and spent the night at Micah's house.

As they approached Micah's house, they recognized the accent of the young Levite. So they stopped there and said to him, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?"

He told them what Micah had done for him, saying, "He hired me and I became his priest."

So the five men journeyed on and arrived in Laish. They noticed that the people there were living securely, like the Sidonians do, undisturbed and unsuspecting. No conqueror was troubling them in any way. They lived far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone.

When the Danites returned to their tribe in Zorah and Eshtaol, their kinsmen asked them, "How did it go?"

They said, "Come on, let's attack them, for we saw their land and it is very good. You seem lethargic, but don't hesitate to invade and conquer the land.