Judges 13:10-25
13:10 The woman ran at once and told her husband,
“Come quickly,
the man who visited
me the other day has appeared to me!”
13:11 So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met
the man, he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”
He said, “Yes.”
13:12 Manoah said, “Now, when your announcement comes true,
how should the child be raised and what should he do?”
13:13 The
Lord’s messenger told
Manoah, “Your wife should pay attention to everything I told her.
13:14 She should not drink
anything that the grapevine produces. She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any food that will make her ritually unclean.
She should obey everything I commanded her to do.”
13:15 Manoah said to the
Lord’s messenger, “Please stay here awhile,
so we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”
13:16 The
Lord’s messenger said to Manoah, “If I stay,
I will not eat your food. But if you want to make a burnt sacrifice to the
Lord, you should offer it.” (He said this because Manoah did not know that he was the
Lord’s messenger.)
13:17 Manoah said to the
Lord’s messenger, “Tell us your name, so we can honor you when your announcement comes true.”
13:18 The
Lord’s messenger said to him, “You should not ask me my name, because you cannot comprehend it.”
13:19 Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered them on a rock to the
Lord. The
Lord’s messenger did an amazing thing as Manoah and his wife watched.
13:20 As the flame went up from the altar toward the sky, the
Lord’s messenger went up in it
while Manoah and his wife watched. They fell facedown
to the ground.
13:21 The Lord’s messenger did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. After all this happened Manoah realized that the visitor had been the Lord’s messenger.
13:22 Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, because we have seen a supernatural being!”
13:23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord wanted to kill us, he would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from us. He would not have shown us all these things, or have spoken to us like this just now.”
13:24 Manoah’s wife gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The child grew and the Lord empowered him.
13:25 The Lord’s spirit began to control him in Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.