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.”
12. So Delilah took new ropes, tied him up with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” Yet while the ambush was waiting in the inner room, he snapped them from his arms like a thread.
13. So Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you’ve mocked me and told me lies! Tell me how you can be bound!” He told her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web of a loom.”
14. So she pinned it with a pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin of the loom and the web.
15. “How can you say, ‘I love you,’” she said to him, “when your heart is not with me? This is three times you’ve deceived me and not told me where your great strength comes from.”
16. Now it came about when she nagged him daily with her speeches and kept bothering him, his soul was annoyed to death.