This haftarah opens with an angel appearing to the wife of Manoah, a woman who has been unable to bear children, announcing that she will conceive and give birth to a son who must be raised under Nazirite restrictions from before his birth, drinking no wine or strong drink, eating nothing unclean, and never having a razor touch his head, since he is destined to begin delivering Israel from the Philistines.
Manoah, once told of the encounter by his wife, prays that the messenger return to instruct them further, and the angel appears a second time, repeating the same instructions directly to Manoah himself and declining to give his own name when asked, calling it too wonderful to be told. When Manoah offers a sacrifice, the angel ascends in the flame of the offering itself, and Manoah, realizing they have seen a divine being, fears they will die, though his wife reasons correctly that God would not have accepted their sacrifice or shown them these things if death were the intended outcome.
The haftarah closes with the birth of the promised son, named Samson, who grows and is blessed, with the spirit of God beginning to stir him even in his youth, closing the account at the very threshold of the deliverance the angel had foretold.