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

²It was said to the Gazites, saying, "Samson came hither." So they went round and lay in wait for him all the night in the gate of the city, and were silent all the night, saying, "In the light of the morning we will kill him."

³But Samson lay down till the middle of the night, and rose in the middle of the night, and caught the doors of the gate of the city and the two doorposts, and set them out with the bar, and put them over his shoulder, and brought them up to the head of the mountain which is over the face of Hebron.

⁴It happened after that, that he loved a woman in the wadi of Sorek, and her name was Delilah.

⁵The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Expand him and see in what his great strength is, and in what we will be able to him, that we may yoke him to afflict him; and we will give to you each man a thousand and a hundred of silver."

⁶Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me in what your great strength is, and in what you will be yoked to afflict you."

⁷Samson said to her, "If they yoke me with seven fresh rests which are not dried, then I will be weak and be as one man."

⁸So the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh rests which are not dried, and she yoked him with them.

⁹Now the lier-in-wait dwelled with her in the inner chamber. She said to him, "The Philistines are over you, Samson!" But he tore the rests as a cord of tow is torn in the smelling of fire, and his strength was not known.

¹⁰Delilah said to Samson, "you mocked me and spoke lies to me. Now tell me in what you will be yoked."

¹¹He said to her, "If they surely yoke me with new cords which not work was made in them, then I will be weak and be as one man."

¹²So Delilah took new cords and yoked him with them, and said to him, "The Philistines are over you, Samson!" And the lier-in-wait dwelled in the inner chamber. But he tore them from over his arms as the thread.

¹³Delilah said to Samson, "Until now you have mocked me and spoken lies to me. Tell me how you can be bound." He said to her, "If you weave the seven plaits of my head with the web, and drive it with the pin into the wall, then I will become weak and be like any other man."

¹⁴So she slept him, and wove the seven braids of his head with the web, and blew them in the stake. Then she said to him, "The Philistines are over you, Samson!" But he sobered from his sleep, and set out the stake of the loom and the web.

¹⁵She said to him, "How will you say, 'I loved you,' and your heart there is no in me? Three times you mocked me, and you not told me in what your great strength is."

¹⁶It happened, when all the days she pressed on him with her words and urged him, that his living being was reaped to die.

¹⁷So he told her all his heart, and said to her, "A razor not came up over my head, for I am a Consecrated one of God from the womb of my mother. If I am shaved, then my strength will remove from me, and I will be weak and be as all men."

¹⁸Delilah saw that he told her all his heart, and she sent out and called to the lords of the Philistines, saying, "Come up this time, for he told me all his heart." So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought up the silver in their hand.

¹⁹She slept him over her knees, and called to the man, and he shaved the seven braids of his head, and began to afflict him, and his strength removed from over him.

²⁰She said, "The Philistines are over you, Samson!" He sobered from his sleep, and said, "I will go forth as the time in the time, and shake myself off." But he did not know that Yahweh removed from over him.

²¹The Philistines caught him and gouged his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and yoked him in the bronzes; and he was grinding in the house of those that are yoked.

²²But the hair of his head began to sprout after which he was shaved.

²³The lords of the Philistines gathered to sacrifice a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to the gladness; for they said, "Our god set Samson our enemy in our hand."

²⁴The people saw him and praised their god, for they said, "Our god set in our hand our enemy, who dried our land and who multiplied our slain."

²⁵There was, as their heart was good, that they said, "Call to Samson, that he may laugh to us." So they called Samson from the house of those that are yoked, and he laughed outright to their face. They set him between the pillars.

²⁶Samson said to the boy who kept hold in his hand, "Settle me, and let me feel the pillars which the house is established over them, that I may rest on over them."

²⁷Now the house was filled with the men and the women, and there all the lords of the Philistines, and over the top as three thousand men and women, those who see in the laughing of Samson.

²⁸Samson called to Yahweh and said, "Adonai Yahweh, remember me, and strengthen me only this time, God, that I may be avenged with the vengeance of the one from the two of my eyes from the Philistines."

²⁹Samson took hold of the two pillars of the middle which the house is established over them, and sustained over them, one in his right and one in his left.

³⁰Samson said, "My living being will die with the Philistines." He stretched out in the strength, and the house fell over the lords and over all the people who were in it. So the dead which he put to death in his death were great from which he put to death in his life.

³¹Then his brothers and all the house of his father came down and carried him, and came up and interred him between Zorah and between Eshtaol in the sepulchre of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.