Samson is denied his wife. He burns the corn of the Philistines, and
kills many of them.
15:1. And a while after, when the days of the wheat harvest were at
hand, Samson came, meaning to visit his wife, and he brought her a kid
of the flock. And when he would have gone into her chamber, as usual,
her father would not suffer him, saying:
15:2. I thought thou hadst hated her, and therefore I gave her to thy
friend: but she hath a sister, who is younger and fairer than she, take
her to wife instead of her.
15:3. And Samson answered him: From this day I shall be blameless in
what I do against the Philistines: for I will do you evils.
15:4. And he went and caught three hundred foxes, and coupled them tail
to tail, and fastened torches between the tails:
Foxes... Being judge of the people he might have many to assist him to
catch with nets or otherwise a number of these animals; of which there
were great numbers in that country.
15:5. And setting them on fire he let the foxes go, that they might run
about hither and thither. And they presently went into the standing corn
of the Philistines. Which being set on fire, both the corn that was
already carried together, and that which was yet standing, was all
burnt, insomuch that the flame consumed also the vineyards and the
oliveyards.
15:6. Then the Philistines said: Who hath done this thing? And it was
answered: Samson, the son-in-law of the Thamnathite, because he took
away his wife, and gave her to another, hath done these things. And the
Philistines went up and burnt both the woman and her father.
15:7. But Samson said to them: Although you have done this, yet will I
be revenged of you, and then I will be quiet.
15:8. And he made a great slaughter of them, so that in astonishment
they laid the calf of the leg upon the thigh. And going down he dwelt in
a cavern of the rock Etam.
15:9. Then the Philistines going up into the land of Juda, camped in the
place which afterwards was called Lechi, that is, the Jawbone, where
their army was spread abroad.
15:10. And the men of the tribe of Juda said to them: Why are you come
up against us? They answered: We are come to bind Samson, and to pay him
for what he hath done against us.
15:11. Wherefore three thousand men of Juda went down to the cave of the
rock Etam, and said to Samson: Knowest thou not that the Philistines
rule over us? Why wouldst thou do thus? And he said to them: As they
did to me, so have I done to them.
15:12. And they said to him: We are come to bind thee, and to deliver
thee into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them: Swear
to me, and promise me that you will not kill me.
15:13. They said: We will not kill thee: but we will deliver thee up
bound. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him from the
rock Etam.
15:14. Now when he was come to the place of the Jawbone, and the
Philistines shouting went to meet him, the Spirit of the Lord came
strongly upon him: and as flax is wont to be consumed at the approach of
fire, so the bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed.
15:15. And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass, which lay
there, catching it up, he slew therewith a thousand men.
15:16. And he said: With the jawbone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt
of asses, I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men.
15:17. And when he had ended these words, singing, he threw the jawbone
out of his hand, and called the name of that place Ramathlechi, which is
interpreted the lifting up of the jawbone.
15:18. And being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord, and said: Thou hast
given this very great deliverance and victory into the hand of thy
servant: and behold I die for thirst, and shall fall into the hands of
the uncircumcised.
15:19. Then the Lord opened a great tooth in the jaw of the ass and
waters issued out of it. And when he had drunk them, he refreshed his
spirit, and recovered his strength. Therefore the name of that place was
called The Spring of him that invoked from the jawbone, until this
present day.
15:20. And he judged Israel, in the days of the Philistines, twenty
years.