1 Samson went to Gaza, saw a prostitute there, and went in to her.
2 The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here!" They surrounded the place and waited in ambush for him all night at the city gate. All night they kept still, thinking, "At daybreak we will kill him."
3 Samson lay until midnight. Then at midnight he rose, seized the doors of the city gate along with both posts, tore them loose, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill opposite Hebron.
4 Afterward he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek named Delilah.
5 The lords of the Philistines went up to her and told her, "Lure him on and see where his great strength comes from and how we can get the better of him, so we can tie him up and humble him. We will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."
6 Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me, please, where your great strength comes from, and what you could be tied with to humble you."
7 Samson told her, "If I am tied with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried out, I will become weak, like any man."
8 The lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried out, and she tied him with them.
9 She had men waiting in ambush in the inner room. She called to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He snapped the bowstrings the way a thread of tow snaps when it comes near fire. So his strength remained unknown.
10 Delilah said to Samson, "See, you have made a fool of me and lied to me. Now tell me, please, what you could be tied with."
11 He told her, "If they tie me up tight with new ropes that have never been put to work, I will become weak, like any man."
12 Delilah took new ropes, tied him with them, and called to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" while the men in ambush waited in the inner room. He snapped them off his arms like thread.
13 Delilah said to Samson, "Up to now you have made a fool of me and lied to me. Tell me what you could be tied with." He told her, "If you weave the seven braids of my head into the web."
14 She drove in the pin and called to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He woke from his sleep and pulled up the loom's pin along with the web.
15 She said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? Three times now you have made a fool of me and have not told me where your great strength comes from."
16 Day after day she pressed him with her words and pushed him, until his soul was worn out to death.
17 So he opened his whole heart to her. He said to her, "No razor has ever touched my head, since I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If I were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, like any man."
18 Delilah saw that he had opened his whole heart to her, and she sent for the lords of the Philistines with the message, "Come up this one more time; he has opened his whole heart to me." The lords of the Philistines came up to her with the silver in their hands.
19 She lulled him to sleep on her knees, called a man, and had him shave off the seven braids of his head. She began to humble him, and his strength left him.
20 She called, "The Philistines are on you, Samson!" He woke from his sleep and thought, "I will go out as I did the other times and shake myself loose." He did not know that the LORD had left him.
21 The Philistines seized him, put out his eyes, and took him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze shackles, and he was set to grinding at the mill in the prison.
22 Yet the hair of his head began to grow back once it had been shaved.
23 The lords of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, "Our god has handed Samson our enemy over to us."
24 The people saw him and praised their god, for they said, "Our god has handed over to us our enemy, the one who ravaged our land and piled up our slain."
25 As their hearts grew merry, they said, "Send for Samson to amuse us." They called Samson from the prison, and he provided amusement for them. They stood him between the pillars.
26 Samson said to the boy who was holding his hand, "Let me alone and let me touch the pillars the house stands on, so I can lean on them."
27 The house was filled with men and women, all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were some three thousand men and women watching Samson's amusement.
28 Samson called to the LORD: "Lord GOD, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, just this one time, O God, so that I may be avenged on the Philistines with one vengeance for my two eyes."
29 Samson grasped the two middle pillars that held up the house and braced himself against them, one with his right hand and one with his left.
30 Samson said, "Let me die along with the Philistines!" He pushed with all his might, and the house fell on the lords and on all the people inside. Those he killed when he died outnumbered those he had killed while he lived.
31 His brothers and all his father's household came down, took him up, and brought him to be buried between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. For twenty years he had judged Israel.