Delilah Learns the Secret

15 “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ ” she asked, “when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and failed to reveal to me the source of your great strength!”

16 Finally, after she had pressed him daily with her words and pleaded until he was sick to death, 17 Samson told her all that was in his heart: “My hair has never been cut, because I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, my strength will leave me, and I will become as weak as any other man.”

18 When Delilah realized that he had revealed to her all that was in his heart, she sent this message to the lords of the Philistines: “Come up once more, for he has revealed to me all that is in his heart.”

Then the lords of the Philistines came to her, bringing the money in their hands.

19 And having lulled him to sleep on her lap, she called a man to shave off the seven braids of his head. In this way she began to subdue him,[fn] and his strength left him. 20 Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!”

When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.

21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.

22 However, the hair of his head began to grow back after it had been shaved.