New King James Version

Judges 15:9-17 New King James Version (NKJV)

9. Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves against Lehi.

10. And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?”So they answered, “We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.”

11. Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?”And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

12. But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.”Then Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.”

13. So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

14. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands.

15. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.

16. Then Samson said:“With the jawbone of a donkey,Heaps upon heaps,With the jawbone of a donkeyI have slain a thousand men!”

17. And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi.