13. But if you cannot answer it for me, you must give me thirty tunics and thirty sets of garments.” “Propose your riddle,” they responded, “and we will listen to it.”
14. So he said to them,“Out of the eater came food,out of the strong came sweetness.”For three days they were unable to answer the riddle,
15. and on the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Trick your husband into solving the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your family. Did you invite us here to reduce us to poverty?”
16. So Samson’s wife wept at his side and said, “You just hate me! You do not love me! You proposed a riddle to my people, but did not tell me the answer.” He said to her, “If I did not tell even my father or my mother, must I tell you?”
17. But she wept beside him during the seven days the feast lasted, and on the seventh day, he told her the answer, because she pressed him, and she explained the riddle to her people.
18. 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 replied to them,“If you had not plowed with my heifer,you would not have solved my riddle.”
19. The spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, where he killed thirty of their men and stripped them; he gave their garments to those who had answered the riddle. Then he went off to his own family in anger,
20. and Samson’s wife was married to the companion who had been his best man.