Judges
Chapter 13
1 The Israelites did bad things again before God, and God let the Philistines rule over them for forty years.
2 A man named Manoah from Zorah, part of the Danite family, had a wife who could not have children.
3 God’s messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, “Look, you have no children, but you will become pregnant and have a son.”
4 Be careful, please, do not drink wine or strong alcohol, and do not eat anything unclean.
5 Look, you will become pregnant and have a son; his hair must never be cut because he will be dedicated to God as a Nazarite from birth, and he will start to rescue Israel from the Philistines.
6 The woman went and said to her husband, “A man of God came to me with a face like an angel of God, very awe-inspiring. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name.”
7 He told me, “Look, you will get pregnant and have a son. So do not drink wine or strong alcohol, and do not eat anything impure, because the boy will be dedicated to God as a Nazarite from birth until he dies.”
8 Then Manoah prayed to God, saying, “Please God, let the man of God you sent us come again and teach us what we should do for the child who will be born.”
9 God listened to Manoah’s prayer, and God’s angel returned to the woman while she was sitting in the field, but her husband Manoah was not with her.
10 The woman quickly ran to her husband, showed him and said, “Look, the man who visited me the other day has appeared to me again.”
11 Manoah got up, followed his wife, and met the man. He asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?” And the man replied, “I am.”
12 Manoah said, “Let your words happen. How should we raise the child and what should we do for him?”
13 The angel told Manoah, “Make sure the woman follows all that I told her.”
14 She must not eat anything from the grapevine, drink wine or strong drinks, or eat anything impure: she should follow all that I instructed her to do.
15 Manoah said to God’s angel, “Please stay with us until we prepare a young goat for you.”
16 The angel said to Manoah, “Even if you keep me here, I won’t eat your bread. If you want to give a burnt offering, you must give it to God.” Manoah didn’t know he was an angel of God.
17 Manoah asked the angel of God, “What is your name, so we can honor you when your words come true?”
18 The angel of God asked him, “Why do you want to know my name, when it is a secret?”
19 Manoah took a young goat with a food offering and sacrificed it on a rock to God; the angel did amazing things, and Manoah and his wife watched.
20 When the fire rose up to the sky from the altar, God’s angel went up in the fire of the altar. Manoah and his wife saw this and fell with their faces to the ground.
21 The angel of God did not show up again to Manoah and his wife. Then Manoah realized that he was an angel of God.
22 Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die because we have seen God.”
23 But his wife said to him, “If God wanted to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt and grain offerings, nor would he have shown us all this or told us such things now.”
24 The woman had a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up and God blessed him.
25 God’s Spirit started to stir him now and then in Dan’s camp, between Zorah and Eshtaol.