¹Then the sons of Israel again did what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. ²And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the Danite family, and his name was Manoah, and his wife was barren, and she had not given birth. ³And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Look now, you are barren, and you have not given birth, but you will conceive and bear a son. ⁴So now, please be on your guard, and do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything unclean. ⁵For you are about to conceive, and you will bear a son, and no razor will pass over his head, for the boy will be a Nazarite of God from the womb, and he will begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” ⁶Then the woman went and spoke to her husband, and she said, “A man of God has come to me, and his appearance was as the appearance of an angel of God – most awesome – and I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name. ⁷And he said to me, ‘You are about to conceive, and you will bear a son. So now, do not drink wine or strong drink, and do not eat anything unclean, for the boy will be a Nazarite of God from the womb to the day of his death.’ ” ⁸Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, “O Lord^*, please – the man of God whom you sent – may he please come to us again and teach us what we are to do with the boy who is to be born.” ⁹And God heeded Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was sitting down in a field, when Manoah her husband was not with her. ¹⁰And the woman hastened and ran and told her husband, and she said to him, “Look, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again.” ¹¹So Manoah got up and followed his wife, and he came to the man, and he said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to the woman?” And he said, “Yes I am.” ¹²Then Manoah said, “May your words now come to pass. What is the boy's duty to be, and his function?” ¹³And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Let her be on her guard about everything I have said to her. ¹⁴She shall not consume anything that comes from the grape vine, nor drink any wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean. Let her keep everything I have commanded her.” ¹⁵Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you, and we will prepare a kid of the goats for you.” ¹⁶But the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I shall not eat your food, but if you would offer a burnt offering, you shall offer it to the Lord.” For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord. ¹⁷Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we can honour you.” ¹⁸Then the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask me my name, when it is Wonderful?” ¹⁹Then Manoah took a kid of the goats and a meal-offering, and he offered them on the rock to the Lord, and a wondrous thing was done while Manoah and his wife were watching. ²⁰And it came to pass, as the flame went up from the altar towards heaven, that the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell face down to the ground. ²¹And the angel of the Lord did not appear again to Manoah or to his wife, so Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. ²²And Manoah said to his wife, “We will certainly die, for we have seen God.” ²³But his wife said to him, “If it had pleased the Lord to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering or a meal-offering from our hand, and he would not have shown us all these things, and at this time he would not have informed us of such things.” ²⁴And the woman bore a son, and she called him Samson, and the boy grew up, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵And the spirit of the Lord began to motivate him in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.