CHAPTER 15
1 But a little time after, when the days of wheat harvest nighed, Samson came, and would visit his wife, and he brought to her a goat kid; and when he would enter into her bed by custom, her father forbade him,
2 and said, I guessed that thou haddest hated her, and therefore I gave her to thy friend; but she hath a sister, which is younger and fairer than she, be she [a] wife to thee for her.
3 To whom Samson answered, From this day forth no blame shall be in me against [the] Philistines, for I shall do evils to you.
4 And he went, and took three hundred foxes, and he joined together their tails to tails, and he bound fire brands in middle of the tails,
5 which he kindled with fire, and let them go, that they should run about hither and thither; which went anon into the corns of [the] Philistines, by which kindled, both the corns borne now together, and yet standing in the stubble, were burnt, in so much that the flame wasted vineries [or vines], and places of olive trees.
6 And the Philistines said, Who did this thing? To whom it was said, Samson, the husband of Timnite’s daughter, for he took away Samson’s wife, and gave her to another man. And the Philistines went up, and burnt both the woman and her father.
7 To the which Philistines Samson said, Though ye have done this thing, nevertheless yet I shall ask and take vengeance of you, and then I shall rest.
8 And he smote them with great wound, so that they wondered, and putted the hinder part of the hip on the thigh; and he went down, and dwelled in the den of the stone of Etam.
9 Then the Philistines went up into the land of Judah, and they setted tents in the place, that was called afterward Lehi, that is, a cheek[bone], where their host was spread abroad.
10 And men of the lineage of Judah said to them, Why have ye gone up against us? The which answered, We come that we bind Samson, and yield to him those things the which he [hath] wrought against us.
11 Therefore three thousand of men of Judah went down to the den of the flint of Etam; and they said to Samson, Knowest thou not, that [the] Philistines command to us, that is, they have lordship on us? Why wouldest thou do this thing to them? To whom he said, As they did to me, so I did to them.
12 They said, We come to bind thee, and to betake thee into the hands of Philistines. To whom Samson answered, Swear ye, and promise ye to me, that ye slay not me.
13 And they said, We shall not slay thee, but we shall betake thee bound to them. And they bound him with two new cords, and took him from the stone of Etam.
14 And when they had come to the place that is called Cheek[bone], and the Philistines crying high had run to him, the spirit of the Lord felled into him, and as sticks be wont to be wasted at the hot tasting of fire, so and the bonds, with which he was bound, were scattered and loosed.
15 And when he had found a cheek-[bone], that is, the nether cheekbone, of an ass, that there lay, he took it, and killed therewith a thousand men;
16 and he said, With the cheek[bone] of an ass, that is, with the nether cheek[bone] of a colt of she-asses, I have done away Philistines, and I have killed therewith a thousand men.
17 And when he had high cried these words, and had fully ended them, he threw away from his hand the nether cheekbone; and he called the name of that place Ramathlehi, that is to say, the Raising up of a cheekbone.
18 And he thirsted greatly, and cried to the Lord, and said, Thou, Lord, hast given into the hand of thy servant this greatest health and victory; and lo! I die for thirst, and I shall fall into the hands of uncircumcised men.
19 Therefore the Lord opened a wang tooth in the cheekbone of the ass, and waters went out thereof, and when he had drunken he refreshed his spirit, and received strengths; therefore the name of that place was called the Well of the inwardly caller of the cheek-bone, unto this present day.
20 And Samson deemed Israel in the days of [the] Philistines twenty years.