NKJV Bible in 365 Days
Flawed Samson Used by God — March 11
Judges 13-15
Judges 13
1 Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord , and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. 365N 70.1
2 Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. 365N 70.2
3 And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 365N 70.3
4 Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. 365N 70.4
5 For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” 365N 70.5
6 So the woman came and told her husband, saying, “A Man of God came to me, and His countenance [a] was like the countenance of the Angel of God, very awesome; but I did not ask Him where He was from, and He did not tell me His name. 365N 70.6
7 And He said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. Now drink no wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’ ” 365N 70.7
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord , and said, “O my Lord, please let the Man of God whom You sent come to us again and teach us what we shall do for the child who will be born.” 365N 70.8
9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the Angel of God came to the woman again as she was sitting in the field; but Manoah her husband was not with her. 365N 70.9
10 Then the woman ran in haste and told her husband, and said to him, “Look, the Man who came to me the other day has just now appeared to me!” 365N 70.10
11 So Manoah arose and followed his wife. When he came to the Man, he said to Him, “Are You the Man who spoke to this woman?” And He said, “I am. ” 365N 70.11
12 Manoah said, “Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?” 365N 70.12
13 So the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. 365N 70.13
14 She may not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor may she drink wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that I commanded her let her observe.” 365N 70.14
15 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord , “Please let us detain You, and we will prepare a young goat for You.” 365N 70.15
16 And the Angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Though you detain Me, I will not eat your food. But if you offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the Lord .” (For Manoah did not know He was the Angel of the Lord .) 365N 70.16
17 Then Manoah said to the Angel of the Lord , “What is Your name, that when Your words come to pass we may honor You?” 365N 70.17
18 And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask My name, seeing it is wonderful?” 365N 70.18
19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord . And He did a wondrous thing while Manoah and his wife looked on— 365N 70.19
20 it happened as the flame went up toward heaven from the altar—the Angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar! When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground. 365N 70.20
21 When the Angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the Angel of the Lord . 365N 70.21
22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!” 365N 70.22
23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have told us such things as these at this time.” 365N 70.23
24 So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. 365N 70.24
25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at [b] Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol. 365N 70.25
Judges 14
1 Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines. 365N 70.26
2 So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.” 365N 70.27
3 Then his father and mother said to him, “ Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for [a] she pleases me well.” 365N 70.28
4 But his father and mother did not know that it was of the Lord —that He was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines. For at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel. 365N 70.29
5 So Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. 365N 70.30
6 And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 365N 70.31
7 Then he went down and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. 365N 70.32
8 After some time, when he returned to get her, he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, a swarm of bees and honey were in the carcass of the lion. 365N 70.33
9 He took some of it in his hands and went along, eating. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they also ate. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. 365N 70.34
10 So his father went down to the woman. And Samson gave a feast there, for young men used to do so. 365N 70.35
11 And it happened, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him. 365N 70.36
12 Then Samson said to them, “Let me pose a riddle to you. If you can correctly solve and explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing. 365N 70.37
13 But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.” And they said to him, “Pose your riddle, that we may hear it.” 365N 70.38
14 So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” Now for three days they could not explain the riddle. 365N 70.39
15 But it came to pass on the [b] seventh day that they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband, that he may explain the riddle to us, or else we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us in order to take what is ours? Is that not so? ” 365N 70.40
16 Then Samson’s wife wept on him, and said, “You only hate me! You do not love me! You have posed a riddle to the sons of my people, but you have not explained it to me.” And he said to her, “Look, I have not explained it to my father or my mother; so should I explain it to you?” 365N 70.41
17 Now she had wept on him the seven days while their feast lasted. And it happened on the seventh day that he told her, because she pressed him so much. Then she explained the riddle to the sons of her people. 365N 70.42
18 So the men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down: “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them: “If you had not plowed with my heifer, You would not have solved my riddle!” 365N 70.43
19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he went down to Ashkelon and killed thirty of their men, took their apparel, and gave the changes of clothing to those who had explained the riddle. So his anger was aroused, and he went back up to his father’s house. 365N 70.44
20 And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man. 365N 70.45
Judges 15
1 After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, “Let me go in to my wife, into her room.” But her father would not permit him to go in. 365N 70.46
2 Her father said, “I really thought that you thoroughly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead.” 365N 70.47
3 And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!” 365N 70.48
4 Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 365N 70.49
5 When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. 365N 70.50
6 Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they answered, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. 365N 70.51
7 Samson said to them, “Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.” 365N 70.52
8 So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam. 365N 70.53
9 Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves against Lehi. 365N 70.54
10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” So they answered, “We have come up to [a] arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.” 365N 70.55
11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” 365N 70.56
12 But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Then Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.” 365N 70.57
13 So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. 365N 70.58
14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds [b] broke loose from his hands. 365N 70.59
15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. 365N 70.60
16 Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men!” 365N 70.61
17 And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place [c] Ramath Lehi. 365N 70.62
18 Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” 365N 70.63
19 So God split the hollow place that is in [d] Lehi, and water came out, and he drank; and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name [e] En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day. 365N 70.64
20 And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines. 365N 70.65