Judges 13:1-25, NLT
Judges 13
The Birth of Samson
1Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years.
2In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children.
6The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name.
8Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.”
9God answered Manoah’s prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband, Manoah, was not with her.
11Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I am.”
12So Manoah asked him, “When your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy’s life and work?”
13The angel of the Lord replied, “Be sure your wife follows the instructions I gave her.
15Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.”
16“I will stay,” the angel of the Lord replied, “but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.” (Manoah didn’t realize it was the angel of the Lord.)
17Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, “What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you.”
18“Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the Lord replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”
19Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing.
21The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord,
23But his wife said, “If the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn’t have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles.”
24When her son was born, she named him Samson. And the Lord blessed him as he grew up.