11. Then three thousand men of Judah went to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “What have you done to us? Don’t you know that the Philistines rule over us?”Samson answered, “I only paid them back for what they did to me.”
12. Then they said to him, “We have come to tie you up and to hand you over to the Philistines.”Samson said to them, “Promise me you will not hurt me yourselves.”
13. The men from Judah said, “We agree. We will just tie you up and give you to the Philistines. We will not kill you.” So they tied Samson with two new ropes and led him up from the cave in the rock.
14. When Samson came to the place named Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting for joy. Then the Spirit of the Lord entered Samson and gave him great power. The ropes on him weakened like burned strings and fell off his hands!
15. Samson found the jawbone of a dead donkey, took it, and killed a thousand men with it!
16. Then Samson said,“With a donkey’s jawboneI made donkeys out of them.With a donkey’s jawboneI killed a thousand men!”
17. When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone. So that place was named Ramath Lehi.
18. Samson was very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord, “You gave me, your servant, this great victory. Do I have to die of thirst now? Do I have to be captured by people who are not circumcised?”
19. Then God opened up a hole in the ground at Lehi, and water came out. When Samson drank, he felt better; he felt strong again. So he named that spring Caller’s Spring, which is still in Lehi.
20. Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.