Judges 13

¹And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

²And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoʹah; and his wife was barren and had no children. ³And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴Therefore beware, and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, ⁵for lo, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very terrible; I did not ask him whence he was, and he did not tell me his name; ⁷but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; so then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’ ”

⁸Then Manoʹah entreated the Lord, and said, “O, Lord, I pray thee, let the man of God whom thou didst send come again to us, and teach us what we are to do with the boy that will be born.” ⁹And God listened to the voice of Manoʹah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field; but Manoʹah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰And the woman ran in haste and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” ¹¹And Manoʹah arose and went after his wife, and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” ¹²And Manoʹah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the boy’s manner of life, and what is he to do?” ¹³And the angel of the Lord said to Manoʹah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her beware. ¹⁴She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing; all that I commanded her let her observe.”

¹⁵Manoʹah said to the angel of the Lord, “Pray, let us detain you, and prepare a kid for you.” ¹⁶And the angel of the Lord said to Manoʹah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food; but if you make ready a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoʹah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) ¹⁷And Manoʹah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” ¹⁸And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” ¹⁹So Manoʹah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord, to him who works wonders. ²⁰And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoʹah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground.

²¹The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoʹah and to his wife. Then Manoʹah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²²And Manoʹah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” ²³But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a cereal offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” ²⁴And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Maʹhaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshʹta-ol.