1. Once Samson went to Gaza and eyed a prostitute there, so he went to her.
2. The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded him, lay in ambush for him all night at the gate of the city, and kept quiet all night saying, “When morning light comes, then we kill him.”
3. But Samson lay in bed till midnight, got up at midnight, grabbed the doors of the city gate along with the two gateposts and pulled them up bar and all. Then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is near Hebron.
4. It came about afterward that he fell in love with a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
5. So the Philistine lords came up to her and said to her, “Coax him, see where his great strength comes from and by what we may overpower him, so we may bind him to subdue him—then we’ll each of us give you 1,100 pieces of silver.”
6. So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me please, where does your great strength come from? How could you be bound to subdue you?”
7. Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have never been dried, then I would be weak and be like any other man.”
8. So the Philistine lords brought up to her seven fresh cords that had never been dried, and she bound him with them,
9. while an ambush was waiting in an inner room. “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” she said to him. But he broke the cords just as a strand of straw snaps when it touches fire. So his strength remained unknown.
10. Delilah said to Samson, “Oh, you deceived me! You lied to me! Now tell me please, how you can be bound?”
11. He told her, “If they only bind me with new ropes never used for work, then I will be weak and be like any other man.”