Judges. Ultio Samson.
Douay-Rheims translation
15:1 And a while after, when the days of the wheat harvest were at hand,
Samson came, meaning to visit his wife, and he brought her a kid of the flock.
And when he would have gone into her chamber as usual, her father would not
suffer him, saying:
15:2 I thought thou hadst hated her, and therefore I gave her to thy friend:
but she hath a sister, who is younger and fairer than she, take her to wife
instead of her.
15:3 And Samson answered him: From this day I shall be blameless in what I
do against the Philistines: for I will do you evils.
15:4 And he went and caught three hundred foxes, and coupled them tail to
tail, and fastened torches between the tails.
15:5 And setting them on fire he let the foxes go, that they might run about
hither and thither. And they presently went into the standing corn of the
Philistines. Which being set on fire, both the corn that was already carried
together, and that which was yet standing, was all burnt, insomuch, that the
flame consumed also the vineyards and the oliveyards.
15:6 Then the Philistines said: Who hath done this thing? And it was answered:
Samson the son in law of the Thamnathite, because he took away his wife, and
gave her to another, hath done these things. And the Philistines went up and
burnt both the woman and her father.
15:7 But Samson said to them: Although you have done this, yet will I be revenged
of you, and then I will be quiet.
15:8 And he made a great slaughter of them, so that in astonishment they laid
the calf of the leg upon the thigh. And going down he dwelt in a cavern of
the rock Etam.
15:9 Then the Philistines going up into the land of Juda, camped in the place
which afterwards was called Lechi, that is, the Jawbone, where their army
was spread.
15:10 And the men of the tribe of Juda said to them: Why are you come up against
us? They answered: We are come to bind Samson, and to pay him for what he
hath done against us.
15:11 Wherefore three thousand men of Juda, went down to the cave of the rock
Etam, and said to Samson: Knowest thou not that the Philistines rule over
us? Why wouldst thou do thus? And he said to them: As they did to me, so have
I done to them.
15:12 And they said to him, We are come to bind thee and to deliver thee into
the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them: Swear to me, and promise
me, that you will not kill me.
15:13 They said: We will not kill thee: but we will deliver thee up bound.
And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him from the rock Etam.
15:14 Now when he was come to the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines
shouting went to meet him, the spirit of the Lord came strongly upon him:
and as the flax is wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the bands
with which he was bound were broken and loosed.
15:15 And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass which lay there, catching
it up, be slew therewith a thousand men.
15:16 And he said: With the jawbone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt of
asses I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men.