¹ The children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month: and the people stayed in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.

² There was no water for the congregation: and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.

³ The people strove with Moses, and spoke, saying, "We wish that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh!

⁴ Why have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?

⁵ Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink."

⁶ Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces: and the glory of Yahweh appeared to them.

⁷ Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

⁸ "Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock; so you shall give the congregation and their livestock drink."

⁹ Moses took the rod from before Yahweh, as he commanded him.

¹⁰ Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Hear now, you rebels; shall we bring you water out of this rock for you?"

¹¹ Moses lifted up his hand, and struck the rock with his rod twice: and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.

¹² Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you didn't believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them."

¹³ These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with Yahweh, and he was sanctified in them.

¹⁴ Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: "Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the travail that has happened to us:

¹⁵ how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and our fathers:

¹⁶ and when we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt: and behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of your border.

¹⁷ "Please let us pass through your land: we will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go along the king's highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border."

¹⁸ Edom said to him, "You shall not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against you."

¹⁹ The children of Israel said to him, "We will go up by the highway; and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then will I give its price: let me only, without [doing] anything [else], pass through on my feet."

²⁰ He said, "You shall not pass through." Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand.

²¹ Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, so Israel turned away from him.

²² They traveled from Kadesh: and the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, came to Mount Hor.

²³ Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

²⁴ "Aaron shall be gathered to his people; for he shall not enter into the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you rebelled against my word at the waters of Meribah.

²⁵ Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up to Mount Hor;

²⁶ and strip Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered [to his people], and shall die there."

²⁷ Moses did as Yahweh commanded: and they went up into Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation.

²⁸ Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them on Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there on the top of the mountain: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain.

²⁹ When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.

¹ But it happened after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a young goat; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the room." But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.

² Her father said, "I most certainly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead."

³ Samson said to them, "This time I will be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I harm them."

⁴ Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between every two tails.

⁵ When he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves.

⁶ Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" They said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife, and given her to his companion." The Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

⁷ Samson said to them, "If you behave like this, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease."

⁸ He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹ Then the Philistines went up, and encamped in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi.

¹⁰ The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" They said, "We have come up to bind 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, "Don't you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" He said to them, "As they did to me, so have I done to them."

¹² They said to him, "We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines." Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not fall on me yourselves."

¹³ They spoke to him, saying, "No; but we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand; but surely we will not kill you." They bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴ When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him: and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.

¹⁵ He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put forth his hand, and took it, and struck a thousand men therewith.

¹⁶ Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men."

¹⁷ It happened, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand; and that place was called Ramath Lehi.

¹⁸ He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh, and said, "You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?"

¹⁹ But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out of it. When he had drunk, his spirit came again, and he revived: therefore its name was called En Hakkore, which is in Lehi, to this day.

²⁰ He judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.