1Then Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.
2It was told to the Gazites, “Samson has come here!” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Until the light of morning, then we will kill him.”
3But Samson lay down until midnight, and at midnight he arose, seized the doors of the city gate and the two doorposts, and pulled them up along with the bar. He put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
4After this, he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
5The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, so that we may bind him to subdue him; and we ourselves will give you, each man, eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
6So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me, please, wherein your great strength lies, and with what you could be bound so as to be subdued.”
7Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man.”
8Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them.
9Now the ambush was sitting waiting for her in the inner room. She said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps when it touches fire; and the secret of his strength was not known.
10Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and told me lies. Now tell me, please, with what you can be bound.”
11He said to her, “If they bind me tightly with new ropes that no work has been done with, then I will become weak and be like any other man.”
12So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!”—the ambush was sitting in the inner room—but he snapped them off his arms like a thread.
13Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you can be bound.” He said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.”
14So she fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he woke from his sleep and pulled out the loom pin, the web, and the warp.
15Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? Three times now you have mocked me, and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies.”
16And it happened, because she pressed him with her words all the days and urged him, that his life grew short to the point of death.
17So he told her all his heart and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother’s womb. If I were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become weak and be like all other men.”
18When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this time, for he has told me all his heart.” So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the silver in their hand.
19She made him sleep on her knees, and she called for the man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to subdue him, and his strength left him.
20She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that Yahweh had left him.
21Then the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes; they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison house.
22But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
23Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice; and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.”
24When the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, “Our god has given into our hand our enemy, the one who ravaged our land and multiplied our slain.”
25And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they called Samson from the prison house, and he made sport before them, and they stood him between the pillars.
26Samson said to the young man who was holding his hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, so that I may lean on them.”
27Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson make sport.
28Then Samson called out to Yahweh and said, “Lord Yahweh, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once, O God, that I may take revenge with a single vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
29Then Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he braced himself against them, one with his right hand and the other with his left.
30And Samson said, “Let my life die with the Philistines.” Then he pushed with all his might, and the house fell on the lords and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life.
31Then his brothers and all his father’s household went down and carried him up, and they brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol, in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years.
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