Judges 15:1-8

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a kid; and he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in. ² And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister fairer than she? Pray take her instead.” ³ And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines, when I do them mischief.” ⁴ So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches; and he turned them tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. ⁵ And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards. ⁶ Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up, and burned her and her father with fire. ⁷ And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged upon you, and after that I will quit.” ⁸ And he smote them hip and thigh with great slaughter; and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.