When the Gazites heard that Samson was there, they surrounded the place and waited in ambush for him all that night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let’s wait until dawn; then we will kill him.”
But Samson stayed in bed only until midnight. Then he got up, took hold of the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts, and pulled them out, bar and all. He put them on his shoulders and took them to the top of the mountain overlooking Hebron.
Some time later, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah, who lived in the Sorek Valley.
So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me, where does your great strength come from? How could someone tie you up and make you helpless? ”
Samson told her, “If they tie me up with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
The Philistine leaders brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him up with them.
Then Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies! Won’t you please tell me how you can be tied up? ”
He told her, “If they tie me up with new ropes that have never been used, I will become weak and be like any other man.”
Delilah took new ropes, tied him up with them, and shouted, “Samson, the Philistines are here! ” But while the men in ambush were waiting in her room, he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.
She fastened the braids with a pin and called to him, “Samson, the Philistines are here! ” He awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin, with the loom and the web.
“How can you say, ‘I love you,’ ” she told him, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and not told me what makes your strength so great! ”
When Delilah realized that he had told her the whole truth, she sent this message to the Philistine leaders: “Come one more time, for he has told me the whole truth.” The Philistine leaders came to her and brought the silver with them.
Then she let him fall asleep on her lap and called a man to shave off the seven braids on his head. In this way, she made him helpless, and his strength left him.
Then she cried, “Samson, the Philistines are here! ” When he awoke from his sleep, he said, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.
The Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he was forced to grind grain in the prison.
Now the Philistine leaders gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They rejoiced and said:
Our god has handed over
our enemy Samson to us.
When the people saw him, they praised their god and said:
Our god has handed over to us
our enemy who destroyed our land
and who multiplied our dead.
Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, “Lead me where I can feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lean against them.”
The temple was full of men and women; all the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about three thousand men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.
He called out to the LORD, “Lord GOD, please remember me. Strengthen me, God, just once more. With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left.
Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the leaders and all the people in it. And those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed in his life.
Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017, 2020 by Holman Bible Publishers.
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