Judges 14 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Samson went down to Timnah and saw a Philistine woman there.

He went back and told his father and mother, "I saw a Philistine woman in Timnah. Get her for me as my wife."

His father and mother said to him, "Is there really no woman among your relatives or among all our people? Do you have to go to the uncircumcised Philistines for a wife?" But Samson told his father, "Get her for me — she's the one I want."

His parents didn't realize that this was being directed by Yahweh, who was looking for an opportunity to confront the Philistines. At that time, the Philistines were ruling over Israel.

So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. When they reached the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion came roaring at him.

The spirit of Yahweh rushed over him with power, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands, like tearing apart a young goat. But he didn't tell his father or mother what he'd done.

He went down and talked with the woman, and she was the right one in Samson's eyes.

Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned off the road to look at the lion's carcass. And there was a swarm of bees inside the carcass, with honey.

He scooped the honey into his hands and ate it as he walked. When he got back to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it too. But he didn't tell them he had taken the honey from the lion's carcass.

His father went down to the woman's house, and Samson threw a feast there — that's what young men did in those days.

When the Philistines saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

Samson said to them, "Let me pose a riddle to you. If you can figure it out within the seven days of the feast, I'll give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes."

"But if you can't figure it out, you give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes." They said to him, "Go ahead, pose your riddle. Let's hear it."

He said to them: "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet." For three days they couldn't solve the riddle.

On the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, "Trick your husband into telling us the answer to the riddle, or we'll burn you and your father's household alive. Did you invite us here just to rob us?"

Samson's wife threw herself on him crying, "You hate me! You don't really love me! You posed a riddle to my people and haven't even told me the answer." He said to her, "Look — I haven't even told my own father and mother. Why would I tell you?"

She cried on him for the rest of the seven days of the feast. On the seventh day he finally told her, because she pressured him so relentlessly. Then she told her people the answer.

On the seventh day, before the sun went down, the men of the city said to him: "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" Samson said to them, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have solved my riddle."

Then the spirit of Yahweh rushed over him with power. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, took their clothing, and gave the sets of clothes to those who had solved the riddle. He was burning with anger, and he went back up to his father's house.

And Samson's wife was given to the companion who had been his best man.