rsv Judges:13-15 SEEK
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And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD ;
and the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years .
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And there was a certain man of Zorah ,
of the tribe of the Danites ,
whose name was Mano '
ah ;
and his wife was barren and had no children .
*
And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her , "
Behold ,
you are barren and have no children ;
but you shall conceive and bear a son .
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Therefore beware ,
and drink no wine or strong drink ,
and eat nothing unclean ,
*
for lo ,
you shall conceive and bear a son .
No razor shall come upon his head ,
for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth ;
and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines ."
*
Then the woman came and told her husband , "
A man of God came to me ,
and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God ,
very terrible ;
I did not ask him whence he was ,
and he did not tell me his name ;
*
but he said to me , `
Behold ,
you shall conceive and bear a son ;
so then drink no wine or strong drink ,
and eat nothing unclean ,
for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death .'"
*
Then Mano '
ah entreated the LORD ,
and said , "
O ,
LORD ,
I pray thee ,
let the man of God whom thou didst send come again to us ,
and teach us what we are to do with the boy that will be born ."
*
And God listened to the voice of Mano '
ah ,
and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field ;
but Mano '
ah her husband was not with her .
*
And the woman ran in haste and told her husband , "
Behold ,
the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me ."
*
And Mano '
ah arose and went after his wife ,
and came to the man and said to him , "
Are you the man who spoke to this woman ?"
And he said , "
I am ."
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And Mano '
ah said , "
Now when your words come true ,
what is to be the boy '
s manner of life ,
and what is he to do ?"
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And the angel of the LORD said to Mano '
ah , "
Of all that I said to the woman let her beware .
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She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine ,
neither let her drink wine or strong drink ,
or eat any unclean thing ;
all that I commanded her let her observe ."
*
Mano '
ah said to the angel of the LORD , "
Pray ,
let us detain you ,
and prepare a kid for you ."
*
And the angel of the LORD said to Mano '
ah , "
If you detain me ,
I will not eat of your food ;
but if you make ready a burnt offering ,
then offer it to the LORD ." (
For Mano '
ah did not know that he was the angel of the LORD .)
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And Mano '
ah said to the angel of the LORD , "
What is your name ,
so that ,
when your words come true ,
we may honor you ?"
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And the angel of the LORD said to him , "
Why do you ask my name ,
seeing it is wonderful ?"
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So Mano '
ah took the kid with the cereal offering ,
and offered it upon the rock to the LORD ,
to him who works wonders .
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And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar ,
the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar while Mano '
ah and his wife looked on ;
and they fell on their faces to the ground .
*
The angel of the LORD appeared no more to Mano '
ah and to his wife .
Then Mano '
ah knew that he was the angel of the LORD .
*
And Mano '
ah said to his wife , "
We shall surely die ,
for we have seen God ."
*
But his wife said to him , "
If the LORD had meant to kill us ,
he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a cereal offering at our hands ,
or shown us all these things ,
or now announced to us such things as these ."
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And the woman bore a son ,
and called his name Samson ;
and the boy grew ,
and the LORD blessed him .
*
And the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him in Ma '
haneh-dan ,
between Zorah and Esh '
ta-ol .
*
Samson went down to Timnah ,
and at Timnah he saw one of the daughters of the Philistines .
*
Then he came up ,
and told his father and mother , "
I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah ;
now get her for me as my wife ."
*
But his father and mother said to him , "
Is there not a woman among the daughters of your kinsmen ,
or among all our people ,
that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines ?"
But Samson said to his father , "
Get her for me ;
for she pleases me well ."
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His father and mother did not know that it was from the LORD ;
for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines .
At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel .
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Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah ,
and he came to the vineyards of Timnah .
And behold ,
a young lion roared against him ;
*
and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him ,
and he tore the lion asunder as one tears a kid ;
and he had nothing in his hand .
But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done .
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Then he went down and talked with the woman ;
and she pleased Samson well .
*
And after a while he returned to take her ;
and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion ,
and behold ,
there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion ,
and honey .
*
He scraped it out into his hands ,
and went on ,
eating as he went ;
and he came to his father and mother ,
and gave some to them ,
and they ate .
But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion .
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And his father went down to the woman ,
and Samson made a feast there ;
for so the young men used to do .
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And when the people saw him ,
they brought thirty companions to be with him .
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And Samson said to them , "
Let me now put a riddle to you ;
if you can tell me what it is ,
within the seven days of the feast ,
and find it out ,
then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments ;
*
but if you cannot tell me what it is ,
then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments ."
And they said to him , "
Put your riddle ,
that we may hear it ."
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And he said to them , "
Out of the eater came something to eat .
Out of the strong came something sweet ."
And they could not in three days tell what the riddle was .
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On the fourth day they said to Samson '
s wife , "
Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is ,
lest we burn you and your father '
s house with fire .
Have you invited us here to impoverish us ?"
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And Samson '
s wife wept before him ,
and said , "
You only hate me ,
you do not love me ;
you have put a riddle to my countrymen ,
and you have not told me what it is ."
And he said to her , "
Behold ,
I have not told my father nor my mother ,
and shall I tell you ?"
*
She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted ;
and on the seventh day he told her ,
because she pressed him hard .
Then she told the riddle to her countrymen .
*
And the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down , "
What is sweeter than honey ?
What is stronger than a lion ?"
And he said to them , "
If you had not plowed with my heifer ,
you would not have found out my riddle ."
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And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him ,
and he went down to Ash '
kelon and killed thirty men of the town ,
and took their spoil and gave the festal garments to those who had told the riddle .
In hot anger he went back to his father '
s house .
*
And Samson '
s wife was given to his companion ,
who had been his best man .
*
After a while ,
at the time of wheat harvest ,
Samson went to visit his wife with a kid ;
and he said , "
I will go in to my wife in the chamber ."
But her father would not allow him to go in .
*
And her father said , "
I really thought that you utterly hated her ;
so I gave her to your companion .
Is not her younger sister fairer than she ?
Pray take her instead ."
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And Samson said to them , "
This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines ,
when I do them mischief ."
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So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes ,
and took torches ;
and he turned them tail to tail ,
and put a torch between each pair of tails .
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And when he had set fire to the torches ,
he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines ,
and burned up the shocks and the standing grain ,
as well as the olive orchards .
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Then the Philistines said , "
Who has done this ?"
And they said , "
Samson ,
the son-in-law of the Timnite ,
because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion ."
And the Philistines came up ,
and burned her and her father with fire .
*
And Samson said to them , "
If this is what you do ,
I swear I will be avenged upon you ,
and after that I will quit ."
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And he smote them hip and thigh with great slaughter ;
and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam .
*
Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah ,
and made a raid on Lehi .
*
And the men of Judah said , "
Why have you come up against us ?"
They said , "
We have come up to bind Samson ,
to do to him as he did to us ."
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Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam ,
and said to Samson , "
Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us ?
What then is this that you have done to us ?"
And he said to them , "
As they did to me ,
so have I done to them ."
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And they said to him , "
We have come down to bind you ,
that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines ."
And Samson said to them , "
Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves ."
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They said to him , "
No ;
we will only bind you and give you into their hands ;
we will not kill you ."
So they bound him with two new ropes ,
and brought him up from the rock .
*
When he came to Lehi ,
the Philistines came shouting to meet him ;
and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him ,
and the ropes which were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire ,
and his bonds melted off his hands .
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And he found a fresh jawbone of an ass ,
and put out his hand and seized it ,
and with it he slew a thousand men .
*
And Samson said , "
With the jawbone of an ass ,
heaps upon heaps ,
with the jawbone of an ass have I slain a thousand men ."
*
When he had finished speaking ,
he threw away the jawbone out of his hand ;
and that place was called Ra '
math-le '
hi .
*
And he was very thirsty ,
and he called on the LORD and said , "
Thou hast granted this great deliverance by the hand of thy servant ;
and shall I now die of thirst ,
and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised ?"
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And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi ,
and there came water from it ;
and when he drank ,
his spirit returned ,
and he revived .
Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkor '
e ;
it is at Lehi to this day .
*
And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years .
*
Samson went to Gaza ,
and there he saw a harlot ,
and he went in to her .