Judges 14

¹⁰The border curled westward from Baalah to Mount Seir, ran along the northern slope of Mount Jearim (that is, Chesalon), went down to Beth-shemesh, and crossed to Timnah.

¹⁶For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.

⁴³Elon, Timnah, Ekron,

³⁷Turn my eyes away from worthless things; revive me with Your word.

¹“I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin?

¹Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land.

²When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.

⁴So Shechem told his father Hamor, “Get me this girl as a wife.”

²So Abraham instructed the chief servant of his household, who managed all he owned, “Place your hand under my thigh,

³and I will have you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I am dwelling,

²¹And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

⁶Now Judah acquired a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar.

⁹But Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “A thistle in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ Then a wild beast in Lebanon came along and trampled the thistle.

³⁶Your servant has killed lions and bears; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”

¹⁸And being very thirsty, Samson cried out to the Lord, “You have accomplished this great deliverance through Your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

²and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

³Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

⁴Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through and torture me!” But his armor-bearer was terrified and refused to do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.

²⁰Tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, and the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.

¹²Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land you are entering, lest they become a snare in your midst.

¹³Rather, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and chop down their Asherah poles.

²⁰For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts to engage Israel in battle, so that they would be set apart for destruction and would receive no mercy, being annihilated as the Lord had commanded Moses.

³Our God is in heaven; He does as He pleases.

¹Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

³³While Elisha was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This calamity is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from God, in order that the Lord might fulfill the word that He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word He had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

¹⁰The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he became Israel’s judge and went out to war. And the Lord delivered Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram into the hand of Othniel, who prevailed against him.

⁶So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.

²⁵And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

⁶When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he burned with great anger.

⁴⁶This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. This day I will strike you down, cut off your head, and give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the creatures of the earth. Then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

⁸The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.

²¹Finally Jacob said to Laban, “Grant me my wife, for my time is complete, and I want to sleep with her.”

²⁰But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

²⁵Then all the troops entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground.

²⁶And when they entered the forest and saw the flowing honey, not one of them put his hand to his mouth, because they feared the oath.

¹⁵Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.

²“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

³He sent his servants to call those he had invited to the banquet, but they refused to come.

⁹and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not know where it was from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside

²²So Laban invited all the men of that place and prepared a feast.

⁹Then the angel told me to write, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

¹⁹A feast is prepared for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.

⁷Beverages were served in an array of goblets of gold, each with a different design, and the royal wine flowed freely, according to the king’s bounty.

⁸By order of the king, no limit was placed on the drinking, and every official of his household was to serve each man whatever he desired.

²⁹The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

⁶When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and said, “Surely here before the Lord is His anointed.”

²³So they ran and brought Saul, and when he stood among the people, he was a head taller than any of the others.

¹⁵Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while He is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

¹Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with difficult questions.

²“Son of man, pose a riddle; speak a parable to the house of Israel

²²He gave new garments to each of them, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes.

²²“Everything is all right,” Gehazi replied. “My master has sent me to say, ‘Look, two young men from the sons of the prophets have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”

⁶by understanding the proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.

⁵“Go now,” said the king of Aram, “and I will send you with a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman departed, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of clothing.

²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds,

³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

⁶The ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening, and he would drink from the brook.

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

²⁴He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”

⁹But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me.

¹⁰That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

¹¹He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

⁶“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “It was Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite,” they were told. “For his wife was given to his companion.” So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father to death.

⁵The lords of the Philistines went to her and said, “Entice him and find out the source of his great strength and how we can overpower him to tie him up and subdue him. Then each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver.”

⁵Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.

¹Then the men of Ephraim assembled and crossed the Jordan to Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, “Why have you crossed over to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down with you inside!”

²⁶For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.

¹Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

²The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden,

¹⁵“How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she asked, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and failed to reveal to me the source of your great strength!”

²⁴For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

¹⁶Finally, after she had pressed him daily with her words and pleaded until he was sick to death,

⁴For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect men,

⁵yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice. Otherwise, she will wear me out with her perpetual requests.’”

⁹Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”

²¹With her great persuasion she entices him; with her flattering lips she lures him.

¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and lied to me all along! Tell me how you can be tied up.” He told her, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the web of a loom and tighten it with a pin, I will become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁶It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words

¹⁷who abandons the partner of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

¹⁰The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he became Israel’s judge and went out to war. And the Lord delivered Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram into the hand of Othniel, who prevailed against him.

²⁵And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

⁶When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he burned with great anger.

¹⁴When Samson arrived in Lehi, the Philistines came out shouting against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. The ropes on his arms became like burnt flax, and the bonds broke loose from his hands.

⁶and the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as one would tear a young goat. But he did not tell his father or mother what he had done.

²“I was sure that you thoroughly hated her,” said her father, “so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

²⁹The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

¹⁸I am not speaking about all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the Scripture: ‘The one who shares My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’

⁵Do not rely on a friend; do not trust in a companion. Seal the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms.

¹²For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.

¹³But it is you, a man like myself, my companion and close friend.

⁵Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they wear themselves out committing iniquity.