1. Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and visited her.
2. The people of Gaza were told, “Samson has come here,” and they surrounded him with an ambush at the city gate all night long. And all the night they waited, saying, “At morning light we will kill him.”
3. Samson lay there until midnight. Then he rose at midnight, seized the doors of the city gate and the two gateposts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He hoisted them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the ridge opposite Hebron.
4. After that he fell in love with a woman in the Wadi Sorek whose name was Delilah.
5. The lords of the Philistines came up to her and said, “Trick him and find out where he gets his great strength, and how we may overcome and bind him so as to make him helpless. Then for our part, we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
6. So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me where you get your great strength and how you may be bound so as to be made helpless.”
7. “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not dried,” Samson answered her, “I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.”
8. So the lords of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not dried, and she bound him with them.
9. She had men lying in wait in the room, and she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings as a thread of tow is snapped by a whiff of flame; and his strength remained unexplained.
10. Delilah said to Samson, “You have mocked me and told me lies. Now tell me how you may be bound.”
11. “If they bind me tight with new ropes, with which no work has been done,” he answered her, “I shall grow weaker and be like anyone else.”
12. So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them. Then she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” For there were men lying in wait in the room. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like thread.