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"Let me tell you a riddle," Samson said to them. "If you can solve it for me within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes.

So he said to them: "Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet." For three days they were unable to explain the riddle.

"Who did this?" the Philistines demanded. "It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite," they were told. "For his wife was given to his companion." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

"Why have you attacked us?" said the men of Judah. The Philistines replied, "We have come to arrest Samson and pay him back for what he has done to us."

And Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

When the Gazites heard that Samson was there, they surrounded that place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They were quiet throughout the night, saying, "Let us wait until dawn; then we will kill him."

When Delilah realized that he had revealed to her all that was in his heart, she sent this message to the lords of the Philistines: "Come up once more, for he has revealed to me all that is in his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came to her, bringing the money in their hands.

And while their hearts were merry, they said, "Call for Samson to entertain us." So they called Samson out of the prison to entertain them. And they stationed him between the pillars.

Then Samson called out to the LORD: "O Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, O God, just once more, so that with one vengeful blow I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes."

And Samson reached out for the two central pillars supporting the temple. Bracing himself against them with his right hand on one pillar and his left hand on the other,

And when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, "I wholly dedicate the silver to the LORD for my son's benefit to make a graven image and a molten idol. Therefore I will now return it to you."

In those days there was no king in Israel, and the tribe of the Danites was looking for territory to occupy. For up to that time they had not come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.

"Micah had done this for me," he replied, "and he has hired me to be his priest."

They answered, "Come on, let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and it is very good. Why would you fail to act? Do not hesitate to go there and take possession of the land!

When you enter, you will come to an unsuspecting people and a spacious land, for God has given it into your hands. It is a place where nothing on earth is lacking."

"Be quiet," they told him. "Put your hand over your mouth and come with us and be a father and a priest to us. Is it better for you to be a priest for the house of one person or a priest for a tribe and family in Israel?"

So the Danites went on their way, and Micah turned to go back home, because he saw that they were too strong for him.

The Danites set up idols for themselves, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

So they set up for themselves Micah's graven image, and it was there the whole time the house of God was in Shiloh.

In those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.