“Take me up to the front of the temple, so that I may stand by one of the pillars, and lean against it.”

And while Samson stood between the two pillars, he prayed: 

“O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and give me strength, only this once, O God:  and help me, that I may obtain vengeance upon the Philistines for my two eyes!”

Then he placed one arm around the pillar on one side, and the other arm around the pillar on the other side; and he said:  “Let me die with the Philistines.”

And he bowed forward with all his might, and pulled the pillars over with him, bringing down the roof and all upon it upon those that were under it.  Samson himself was among the dead; but in his death he killed more of the Philistines than he had killed during his life.

Then in the terror which came upon the Philistines the men of Samson’s tribe came down and found his dead body, and buried it in their own land.  After that it was years before the Philistines tried again to rule over the Israelites.

Samson did much to set his people free; but he might have done much more, if he had led his people, instead of trusting alone to his own strength; and if he had lived more earnestly, and not done his deeds as though he was playing pranks.  There were deep faults in Samson, but at the end he sought God’s help, and found it, and God used Samson to set his people free.

THE STORY OF RUTH, THE GLEANER

In the time of the Judges in Israel, a man named Elimelech was living in the town of Bethlehem, in the tribe of Judah, about six miles south of Jerusalem.  His wife’s name was Naomi, and his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion.  For some years the crops were poor, and food was scarce in Judah; and Elimelech with his family went to live in the land of Moab, which was on the east of the Dead Sea, as Judah was on the west.

There they stayed ten years, and in that time Elimelech died.  His two sons married women of the country of Moab, one named Orpah, the other named Ruth.  But the two young men also died in the land of Moab; so that Naomi and her two daughters-in-law were all left widows.

Naomi heard that God had again given good harvests and bread to the land of Judah, and she rose up to go from Moab back to her own land and her own town of Bethlehem.  The two daughters-in-law loved her, and both would have gone with her, though the land of Judah was a strange land to them, for they were of the Moabite people.

Naomi said to them:  “Go back, my daughters, to your own mothers’ homes.  May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have been kind to your husbands and to me.  May the Lord grant that each of you may yet find another husband and a happy home.”

Then Naomi kissed them in farewell, and the three women all wept together.  The two young widows said to her: 

“You have been a good mother to us, and we will go with you, and live among your people.”