Judges 13:9-21

9God did what Manoah had asked. The angel came again to visit Manoah's wife. She was resting in the fields and her husband was not with her.

10She ran to tell her husband, ‘Come quickly! The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again!’

11Manoah got up and he followed his wife. When he met the man, he asked him, ‘Are you the man who talked to my wife?’ The man said, ‘Yes, I am.’

12Then Manoah asked him, ‘When what you promised happens, how should the boy live? What kind of work will he do?’

13The Lord's angel answered, ‘Your wife must be careful to do everything that I told her.

14She must not eat anything that comes from vines. She must not drink wine or beer. She must not eat any food that is unclean. She must obey everything that I have commanded her to do.’

15Manoah said to the Lord's angel, ‘Please stay here with us. We would like to cook a young goat for you to eat.’

16The angel replied, ‘Even if I stay with you, I will not eat your food. But you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord.’ The angel said that because Manoah had not realized that he was the Lord's angel.

17Then Manoah asked the Lord's angel, ‘What is your name? When what you have promised happens, we will want to give you honour.’

18The angel replied, ‘You should not ask what my name is. It is too great for you to understand.’

19Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering. He offered them on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. While Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord surprised them with a miracle.

20As the flames of fire rose up from the sacrifice to the sky, the Lord's angel went up in the flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell down with their faces towards the ground.

21The Lord's angel did not appear to them again. Manoah then realized that their visitor was the Lord's own angel.