Judges 15:1-8

New American Standard Bible

Samson Burns Philistine Crops

15 But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife ^(A)with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter. ² Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I ^(B)gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not ^[a]more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours ^[b]instead.” ³ Samson then said to them, “This time I will have been blameless regarding the Philistines when I do them harm.” ⁴ And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned the jackals tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. ⁵ When he had set fire to the torches, he released the jackals into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to both the bundled heaps and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and olive groves. ⁶ Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And some said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because ^[c]he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and ^(C)burned her and her father to death with fire. ⁷ Then Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will certainly take revenge on you, and only after that will I stop.” ⁸ So he struck them ^[d]ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and afterward he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.