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Judges 16:1-22 — Samson and Delilah

Judg.16.1-22

¹Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute and went in to her. ²It was told to the Gazites, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate, and they kept quiet all night, saying, “Until the morning light, then we will kill him.” ³But Samson lay there until midnight. At midnight he rose, seized the doors of the city gate and the two doorposts, pulled them up together with the bar, put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill that faces Hebron . ⁴After this, he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. ⁵Then the lords of the Philistines went up to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see in what his great strength lies and by what we may overpower him, so that we may bind him to afflict him; and each one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” ⁶So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me in what your great strength lies, and how you could be bound to afflict you.” ⁷Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man.” ⁸Then the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. ⁹Now the men in ambush were waiting for her in the inner room. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a strand of tow snaps when it smells fire, so his strength was not discovered. ¹⁰Then Delilah said to Samson, “Look, you have mocked me and told me lies. Now please tell me how you could be bound.” ¹¹He said to her, “If they bind me with new ropes that have never been used, then I will become weak and be like any other man.” ¹²So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them, and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” Now the men in ambush were waiting in the inner room. But he snapped them off his arms like a thread. ¹³Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you could be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head into the web .” ¹⁴So she fastened it with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin, 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 when she pressed him with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was weary 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 Nazarite 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 lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up this time, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her, bringing the silver in their hands. ¹⁹Then she made him sleep on her knees, called for a man, and had the seven locks of his head shaved off. And 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 the LORD had departed from him. ²¹Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They 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 was shaved.

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4/11/2026

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