Judges 15 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Some time later, during the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing a young goat as a gift. He said, "I'm going to my wife's room." But her father wouldn't let him go in.

Her father said, "I was sure you completely despised her, so I gave her to your best man. But her younger sister is even more beautiful — take her instead."

Samson said to them, "This time I'm completely justified in getting back at the Philistines — I'm going to cause them real damage."

So Samson went out and caught three hundred foxes. He took torches, tied the foxes tail to tail in pairs, and fastened a torch between each pair of tails.

He lit the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the stacked grain, the standing grain, and even the olive groves.

The Philistines asked, "Who did this?" They were told, "Samson, the son-in-law of the man from Timnah — because the man took Samson's wife and gave her to his best man." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

Samson said to them, "If this is how you act, then I swear I won't stop until I've gotten my revenge on you."

He attacked them viciously, with a massive slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.

The Philistines marched up and set up camp in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.

The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come up against us?" They answered, "We've come to capture Samson — to do to him what he did to us."

So three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, "Don't you realize the Philistines rule over us? What have you done to us?" He answered, "I only did to them what they did to me."

They told him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines." Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves."

"We won't," they assured him. "We'll only tie you up securely and hand you over to them. We absolutely won't kill you." So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

When he reached Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Breath of Yahweh rushed over him powerfully. The ropes on his arms became like burned-through linen threads, and the bindings melted off his hands.

He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out and grabbed it, and struck down a thousand men with it.

Then Samson declared: "With a donkey's jawbone — heaps upon heaps! With a donkey's jawbone — I've struck down a thousand men!"

When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone away. And that place was called Ramath Lehi.

He was desperately thirsty and called out to Yahweh, saying, "You've given this incredible victory through your servant. Am I now going to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"

So God split open the hollow place at Lehi, and water flowed out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. That's why it's called En Hakkore — it's still there in Lehi today.

Samson led Israel for twenty years during the time of the Philistines.