Judges 15:8-20

8He attacked them viciously and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam. 9The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.

10The people of Judah asked, “Why have you come to fight us?” “We have come to take Samson prisoner,” they answered, “to do to him as he did to us.”

11Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?” He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”

12They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.” 13“Agreed,” they answered. “We will only tie you up and hand you over to them. We will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and led him up from the rock. 14As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands.

15Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

16Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. Or made a heap or two; the Hebrew for donkey sounds like the Hebrew for heap. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

17When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi. Ramath Lehi means jawbone hill. 18Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

19Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, En Hakkore means caller’s spring. and it is still there in Lehi. 20Samson led Traditionally judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.