Samson went to Gaza, where people waited at the gate through the night to kill him. At midnight he rose, pulled up the city gate with its posts and bar, and carried it to the hill facing Hebron. Later he loved Delilah in the Valley of Sorek.
Philistine rulers promised Delilah silver if she learned the source of Samson’s great strength. Samson said he would become weak if bound with seven fresh bowstrings. Delilah bound him while men lay in ambush, but he snapped them. He then said new ropes would weaken him; he snapped those as well when she cried that Philistines were upon him.
For a third answer Samson said his seven locks must be woven into the loom. Delilah did so while he slept, but he pulled free the pin and the web. She pressed him day after day, asking how he could claim love while withholding his heart. At last he was worn down to death.
Samson told her that no razor had touched his head because he had been a Nazirite to God from the womb. If shaved, he said, his strength would leave him. Delilah called the rulers. She put him to sleep on her knees, had his seven locks shaved, and his strength began to leave. When she called again, Samson thought he would shake himself free, but he did not know that the LORD had left him.
The Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, took him to Gaza, bound him with bronze chains, and made him grind in prison. His hair began to grow again. The rulers gathered to praise Dagon for giving them their enemy. When they wanted amusement, Samson was brought out and placed between the pillars of the temple.
Samson asked the boy leading him to let him feel the two central pillars. The temple was full of men and women, and about three thousand, including rulers, were on the roof. Samson prayed that God would remember him and strengthen him once more, so that he could take vengeance on the Philistines for his two eyes. He grasped one pillar with his right hand and the other with his left.
Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines,” and pushed with all his strength. The temple fell on the rulers and all the people inside. He killed more in his death than during his life. His brothers and father’s household carried him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah. He had judged Israel for twenty years.