God sent a spirit to stir up hostility ¹  between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem. He made the leaders of Shechem disloyal ²  to Abimelech.

They stopped ¹  there, went inside the young Levite’s house (which belonged to Micah), ²  and asked him how he was doing. ³ 

But you have attacked ¹  my father’s family ²  today. You murdered his seventy legitimate ³  sons on one stone and made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the leaders of Shechem, just because he is your close relative. ⁴ 

But then an old man passed by, returning at the end of the day from his work in the field. ¹  The man was from the Ephraimite hill country; he was living temporarily in Gibeah. (The residents of the town were Benjaminites.) ² 

The Lord’s angelic messenger ¹  came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon ²  was threshing ³  wheat in a winepress ⁴  so he could hide it from the Midianites. ⁵ 

When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he ¹  raised up a deliverer for the Israelites who rescued ²  them. His name was Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. ³ 

In those days Israel had no king. There was a Levite ¹  living temporarily in the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. He acquired a concubine ²  from Bethlehem ³  in Judah.

So she made him go to sleep, wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric on the loom, fastened it with the pin, and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ¹  Samson!” ²  He woke up ³  and tore away the pin of the loom and the fabric.

They waited so long they were embarrassed, but he still did not open the doors of the upper room. Finally they took the key and opened the doors. ¹  Right before their eyes was their master, sprawled out dead on the floor! ² 

So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are here, ¹  Samson!” (The Philistines were hiding in the bedroom.) ²  But he tore the ropes ³  from his arms as if they were a piece of thread.

Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please allow us ¹  to pass through your land.” But the king of Edom rejected the request. ²  Israel sent the same request to the king of Moab, but he was unwilling to cooperate. ³  So Israel stayed at Kadesh.

Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you can be subdued.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven braids of my hair ¹  into the fabric on the loom ²  and secure it with the pin, I will become weak and be like any other man.”

Manoah prayed to the Lord, ¹  “Please, Lord, allow the man sent from God ²  to visit ³  us again, so he can teach ⁴  us how we should raise ⁵  the child who will be born.”

Now Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to Shechem to see his mother’s relatives. ¹  He said to them and to his mother’s entire extended family, ² 

But Joash said to all those who confronted him, ¹  “Must you fight Baal’s battles? ²  Must you rescue him? Whoever takes up his cause ³  will die by morning! ⁴  If he really is a god, let him fight his own battles! ⁵  After all, it was his altar that was pulled down.” ⁶ 

So Samson’s bride cried on his shoulder ¹  and said, “You must ²  hate me; you do not love me! You told the young men ³  a riddle, but you have not told me the solution.” He said to her, “Look, I have not even told my father or mother. Do you really expect me to tell you?” ⁴ 

When he gave back to his mother the eleven hundred pieces of silver, his mother said, “I solemnly dedicate ¹  this silver to the Lord. It will be for my son’s benefit. We will use it to make a carved image and a metal image.” ² 

On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” He said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, ¹  you would not have solved my riddle!”

Sometime later, during the wheat harvest, ¹  Samson took a young goat as a gift and went to visit his bride. ²  He said to her father, ³  “I want to have sex with my bride in her bedroom!” ⁴  But her father would not let him enter.

Three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in the cliff of Etam and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? Why have you done this to us?” He said to them, “I have only done to them what they have done to me.”