Open English Translation JDG Chapter 16

16 Samson went to Gaza city and he saw a prostitute woman there so he went in to spend the night with her. 2 But the Gazites passed around the news, “Shimshon’s in town.” So they encircled the city gate and they laid in wait for him all night. They stayed quiet the whole night, saying, “We’ll kill him when it gets light.” 3 Samson stayed with her until the middle of the night, then he got up. He picked up both the gates including the cross-bar and their posts, and hoisted them up onto his shoulders, and he carried them up to the top of the hill which is in front of Hebron.

4 Sometime after that, Shimshon fell in love with a Philistine woman named Delilah who lived in the Sorek valley. 5 The Philistine leaders came to her and requested, “Make him open up. Find out what makes him strong, and how we can beat him, so that we can tie him up to keep him in our power. Then we’ll each give you one thousand one hundred silver coins.”

6 So Delilah asked Shimshon, “Please, tell me what makes you so strong, and how could someone tie you up to keep you in their power?”

7 “If they’d tie me up with seven green cords that haven’t been dried,” he replied, “then I’d become weak and be just like any other man.”

8 So the Philistine leaders brought her seven green cords that hadn’t been dried, and she tied him up with them. 9 Now she had an ambush group ready in the next room when she said to him, “The Philistines are here to get you, Shimshon!” But he tore the cords to shreds just like a strip of flax fiber is torn to shreds when the fire reaches it, thus they didn’t find out the secret of his strength. 10 Then Delilah said to him, “Listen, you deceived me and lied to me. Now tell me, please, how could someone tie you up?”

11 “Actually, if they would tie me with new ropes which have never been used,” he replied, “I’d become weak and be just like any other man.”

12 So Delilah took new cords and tied him up with them. She said to him, “The Philistines are here to get you, Shimshon!” with the ambush group staying in the next room. But he flicked them off his arms like they were just thread.

13 Then Delilah said to Shimshon, “So far you’ve just been deceitful to me and told me lies. Now Tell me how you can be tied up.”

So he told her, “It’s if you just weave seven locks of my hair into the loom.”

14 So she did it and fastened it with the pin, and called out, “The Philistines are here to get you, Shimshon!” Then he woke up and ripped out the pin, the loom, and his hair from the fabric.

15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart isn’t with me? You’ve been deceitful to me three times now, and you haven’t revealed to me the secret of your amazing strength.” 16 Day after day she nagged and pestered him until he was sick to death of hearing it. 17 So finally he told her his secret, “My hair has never been cut because I’ve been a Nazirite to God since my birth. If my head would be shaved, then my strength would leave me, and I’d become weak—I’d be just like any other man.”

18 When Delilah perceived that he’d told her his deepest secret, she summoned the Philistine leaders, “Come here one more time, because he’s told me his secret.” So the Philistine leaders came, bringing the silver coins with them. 19 Then she made him fall asleep on her knees, and she called in a man to shave off his seven locks of hair, causing him to start to weaken, and his additional strength left him. 20 Then she said, “The Philistines are here to get you, Shimshon!” He woke up and thought to himself, “I’ll escape like all the other times and I’ll shake myself loose.” But he didn’t know that Yahweh had left him. 21 So the Philistines seized him, and they gouged out his eyes. They brought him to Gaza and chained him with a pair of bronze shackles, then they put him to work in prison grinding grain. 22 However, over time his hair began to grow back again.

23 Some time later, the Philistine leaders gathered together for a celebration and to offer a large sacrifice to their god Dagon, saying, “Our god has helped us capture our terrible enemy, Shimshon.” 24 When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, “Our god has helped us capture our enemy—the devastator of our region who killed so many of us.” 25 Later in the celebration when the drink had liberated their thinking, they said, “Call for Shimshon so he can entertain us.” So they brought Shimshon in from the prison and taunted him to get them all laughing. They made him stand among the pillars of the building 26 and he asked the servant who was guiding him by the hand, “Place my hands against the two pillars holding up the building so I can lean on them.” 27 The building was full of the men and the women, including the Philistine leaders. On the roof there were about three thousand men and women watching the entertainment with Shimshon.

28 Then Shimshon called out to Yahweh, “My master Yahweh, please remember me. Strengthen me please, just this time, oh God, so that I can avenge myself by one last act of vengeance on the Philistines to make them pay for my two eyes.” 29 Then he took hold of the two centre pillars on which the building depended, and pressed out against them—one in his right hand and one in his left. 30 Then he exclaimed, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He stretched out with his strength and the building fell on their leaders and all of the people in it. So he killed more people at his death than he had killed during his life.

31 Then his brothers and all his father’s household went to Gaza and carried his body back. They buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burial place of his father Manoah. He had helped Israel for twenty years.