Judges 16

1Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her.

2The Gazites were told, saying, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded him and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Until the light of morning, then we will kill him.”

3And Samson lay until midnight. Then he arose at midnight and seized the doors of the city gate and the two doorposts, and pulled them up with the bar; he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the hill that is opposite Hebron.

4After this, he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, and her name was Delilah.

5Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see in what his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, so that we may bind him to afflict him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

6Then Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you could be bound to afflict you.”

7And Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not dried, then I will become weak and be like one of the men.”

8So the Philistine rulers brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

9The ambush was waiting for her in the inner room, and she said to him, “Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the cords as a thread of tow snaps when it smells fire, and his strength was not discovered.

10Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and spoken lies to me. Now please tell me what you may be bound with.”

11He said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have never been used for work, then I will become weak and be like one of the men.”

12Then Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” Now the ambush was sitting in the inner room, but he snapped them from off his arms like a thread.

13Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me what you may be bound with.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.”

14Then she fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin of the loom and the web.

15Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? These three times you have mocked me and have not told me in what your great strength lies.”

16And it happened that, when she pressed him with her words all the days and urged him on, his soul 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 am shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like every other man.”

18When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the Philistine rulers, saying, “Come up this time, for he has told her all his heart.” Then the Philistine rulers came up to her and brought the silver in their hands.

19So she made him sleep on her knees, and she called for a man, and she shaved off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him.

20And she 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 departed from him.

21Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza, bound him with bronze shackles, and he was grinding in the prison house.

22But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

23The rulers of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, 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 devastator of our land, the one who multiplied our slain.”

25And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, so that he may entertain us.” So they called for Samson from the prison house, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars.

26Then Samson said to the young man who was holding his hand, “Let me rest, and guide me to the pillars on which the house stands, so that I may lean against them.”

27The house was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there. And on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson as he performed.

28Then Samson called to Yahweh and said, “Lord GOD, please remember me, and please strengthen me just this once, O God, so that I may take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes with one act of vengeance.”

29Then Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house stood, and he braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left.

30And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bent with all his strength, and the house fell on the rulers and on all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.

31Then his brothers and all his father’s household came down, carried him away, brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol, in the tomb of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.