1   Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute and went in to spend the night with her. 2   The people of Gaza heard ^note that Samson had come, and they surrounded him and lay in wait for him all that night at the city gate. During the night, however, they took no action, saying to themselves, ‘When day breaks we shall kill him.’ 3   Samson lay in bed till midnight; and when midnight came he rose, seized hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them out, bar and all, hoisted them on to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill east of Hebron.

4   After this Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the valley of Sorek. 5   The lords of the Philistines went up country to see her and said, ‘Coax him and find out what gives him his great strength, and how we can master him, bind him and so hold him captive; then we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.’ 6   So Delilah said to Samson, ‘Tell me what gives you your great strength, and how you can be bound and held captive.’ 7   Samson replied, ‘If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings not yet dry, then I shall become as weak as any other man.’ 8   So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings not yet dry, and she bound him with them. 9   She had men already hidden in the inner room, and she cried, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps when it feels the fire, and his strength was not tamed. 10   Delilah said to Samson, ‘I see you have made a fool of me and told me lies. 11   Tell me this time how you can be bound.’ He said to her, ‘If you bind me tightly with new ropes that have never been used, then I shall become as weak as any other man.’ 12   So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them. Then she cried, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’, while the men waited hidden in the inner room. He snapped the ropes off his arms like pack-thread. 13   Delilah said to him,

Israel oppressed by the Philistines ‘You are still making a fool of me and have told me lies. Tell me: how can you be bound?’ He said, ‘Take the seven loose locks of my hair and weave them into the warp, and then drive them tight with the beater; and I shall become as weak as any other man.’ So she lulled him to sleep, 14   wove the seven loose locks of his hair into the warp, ^note and drove them tight with the beater, and cried, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ He woke from sleep and pulled away the warp and the loom with it. ^note 15   She said to him, ‘How can you say you love me when you do not confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and have not told me what gives you your great strength.’ 16   She so pestered him with these words day after day, pressing him hard and wearying him to death, that he told her his secret. 17   ‘No razor has touched my head,’ he said, ‘because I am a Nazirite, consecrated to God from the day of my birth. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me, and I should become as weak as any other man.’ 18   Delilah saw that he had told her his secret; so she sent to the lords of the Philistines and said, ‘Come up at once, he has told me his secret.’ So the lords of the Philistines came up and brought the money with them. 19   She lulled him to sleep on her knees, summoned a man and he shaved the seven locks of his hair for her. She began to take him captive and his strength left him. 20   Then she cried, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ He woke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as usual and shake myself’; he did not know that the Lord had left him. 21   The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza. There they bound him with fetters of bronze, and he was set to grinding corn in the prison. 22   But his hair, after it had been shaved, began to grow again.

23   The lords of the Philistines assembled together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon and to rejoice before him. They said, ‘Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands.’ 24   The people, when they saw him, praised their god, chanting:

  Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands,
  the scourge of our land who piled it with our dead.

25   When they grew merry, they said, ‘Call Samson, and let him fight to make sport for us.’ So they summoned Samson from prison and he made sport before them all. 26   They stood him between the pillars, and Samson said to the boy who held his hand, ‘Put me where I can feel the pillars which support the temple, so that I may lean against them.’ 27   The temple was full of men and women, and all the lords of the Philistines were there, and there were about three thousand men and women on the roof watching Samson as he fought. 28   Samson called on the Lord and

Israel oppressed by the Philistines said, ‘Remember me, O Lord God, remember me: give me strength only this once, O God, and let me at one stroke be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.’ 29   He put his arms round the two central pillars which supported the temple, his right arm round one and his left round the other, 30   and braced himself and said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’ Then Samson leaned forward with all his might, and the temple 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 in his life. 31   His brothers and all his father's family came down, carried him up to the grave of his father Manoah between Zorah and Eshtaol and buried him there. He had been judge over Israel for twenty years.

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