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So it was the Lord , the God of Israel, who drove out the Amorites for his people, the Israelites.

When Jephthah went back home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him, dancing and playing the tambourine. She was his only child.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes in sorrow and said, "Oh, my daughter! You are breaking my heart! Why must it be you that causes me pain? I have made a solemn promise to the Lord , and I cannot take it back!"

Jephthah led Israel for six years. Then he died and was buried in his hometown in Gilead.

He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters in marriage outside the clan and brought thirty young women from outside the clan for his sons to marry. Ibzan led Israel for seven years,

At that time there was a man named Manoah from the town of Zorah. He was a member of the tribe of Dan. His wife had never been able to have children.

and after your son is born, you must never cut his hair, because from the day of his birth he will be dedicated to God as a nazirite. He will begin the work of rescuing Israel from the Philistines."

Then the woman went and told her husband, "A man of God has come to me, and he looked as frightening as the angel of God. I didn't ask him where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name.

God did what Manoah asked, and his angel came back to the woman while she was sitting in the field. Her husband Manoah was not with her,

Manoah got up and followed his wife. He went to the man and asked, "Are you the man who talked to my wife?" "Yes," he answered.

While the flames were going up from the altar, Manoah and his wife saw the Lord 's angel go up toward heaven in the flames. Manoah realized then that the man had been the Lord 's angel, and he and his wife threw themselves face downward on the ground. They never saw the angel again.

Manoah said to his wife, "We are sure to die, because we have seen God!"

But his wife answered, "If the Lord had wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted our offerings; he would not have shown us all this or told us such things at this time."

He went back home and told his father and mother, "There is a Philistine woman down at Timnah who caught my attention. Get her for me; I want to marry her."

But his father and mother asked him, "Why do you have to go to those heathen Philistines to get a wife? Can't you find someone in our own clan, among all our people?" But Samson told his father, "She is the one I want you to get for me. I like her."

His parents did not know that it was the Lord who was leading Samson to do this, for the Lord was looking for a chance to fight the Philistines. At this time the Philistines were ruling Israel.

So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. As they were going through the vineyards there, he heard a young lion roaring.

Suddenly the power of the Lord made Samson strong, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands, as if it were a young goat. But he did not tell his parents what he had done.

He scraped the honey out into his hands and ate it as he walked along. Then he went to his father and mother and gave them some. They ate it, but Samson did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the dead body of a lion.

His father went to the woman's house, and Samson gave a banquet there. This was a custom among the young men.