Judges

Chapter 14

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Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.

A dotted word is a harder one. Point at it, or tap it, for a short definition.

1Samson went down to Timnah, and he saw a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines.

2He went up and told his father and his mother, and he said, I have seen a woman in Timnah, one of the daughters of the Philistines. Now get her for me as a wife.

3His father and his mother said to him, Is there no woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you are going to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines? Samson said to his father, Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.

4His father and his mother did not know that it was from Yahweh, for he was seeking an occasion against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines were ruling Israel.

5Samson went down, with his father and his mother, to Timnah. They came to the vineyards of Timnah, and look, a young lion was roaring toward him.

6The spirit of Yahweh rushed on him, and he tore it apart as one tears a kid apart, and there was nothing in his hand. He did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

7He went down and spoke to the woman, and she was right in Samson’s eyes.

8He returned after some days to take her, and he turned aside to see the fallen body of the lion, and look, a swarm of bees was in the lion’s body, and honey.

9He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. He went to his father and to his mother and gave some to them, and they ate. He did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the lion’s body.

10His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there, for that is what the young men would do.

11When they saw him, they took thirty companions, and they were with him.

12Samson said to them, Let me set a riddle for you, please. If you can tell it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothing.

13If you cannot tell it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen wraps and thirty changes of clothing. They said to him, Set your riddle, and let us hear it.

14He said to them, From the eater, food came out, and from the strong, sweet came out. They could not tell the riddle for three days.

15On the seventh day they said to Samson’s wife, Persuade your husband, and let him tell us the riddle, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Did you invite us here to dispossess us? Did you not?

16Samson’s wife wept on him and said, You only hate me. You do not love me. You set a riddle for the sons of my people, and you have not told it to me. He said to her, Look, I have not told it to my father or to my mother, and shall I tell it to you?

17She wept on him the seven days that their feast lasted. On the seventh day he told her, because she pressed him, and she told the riddle to the sons of her people.

18The men of the city said to him on the seventh day, before the sun went in, What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion? He said to them, If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found my riddle.

19The spirit of Yahweh rushed on him. He went down to Ashkelon and struck thirty men of them, took their spoil, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had told the riddle. His anger burned, and he went up to his father’s house.

20Samson’s wife became his companion’s, the one who had been his friend.