Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went into her.

The Gazites were told that Samson had arrived. They surrounded him all night at the city gate, waiting quietly until morning to kill him. But Samson lay till midnight and arose at midnight, taking the doors of the city gate – including the two posts and the bar – and carrying them up to the top of a hill before Hebron.

After that, he fell in love with a woman from the valley of Sorek named Delilah. The lords of the Philistines came to her and said, "Entice him and discover his great strength, so we can bind him and afflict him. Each of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."

Delilah asked Samson, "Tell me in what your great strength lies, and by what means we might bind you." Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven green withes that were never dried, then I will be weak and be like any other man."

The lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had not been dried. She bound him with them, but men were lying in wait with her in the inner chamber. She said to him, "The Philistines are upon you." He broke the withes as a thread of tow breaks when it touches fire, so his strength was not known.

Delilah said to Samson, "You have mocked me and told me lies; now tell me, I pray you, with what you might be bound." And he said to her, "If they bind me with new ropes that have never been used before, then I will be weakened and become like any other man." Delilah therefore took new ropes and bound him with them. She said to him, "The Philistines are upon you," but there were men lying in wait in the room. He broke loose from their grasp as easily as a thread is snapped.

Delilah kept saying to Samson, "You've been mocking me and telling me lies up until now; tell me what would bind you." He replied, "If you weave the seven locks of my head into a web." And she fastened it with the pin, telling him that the Philistines were upon him. But he awoke from his sleep, taking hold of the pin in the beam and its web.

She said to him, "How can you say you love me when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times and still haven't told me where your great strength lies." And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him that his soul was vexed unto death.

That he told her all his heart, saying, "There has not come a razor upon my head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb: if I be shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man." And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines. She said to them, "Come up this once, for he has shown me all his heart." Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, bringing money with them.

She made him sleep on her knees; then she called for a man to shave off the seven locks of his head. As soon as the man shaved it off, she began to afflict him, causing his strength to leave him. Samson awoke from his sleep and said, "I will go out as I have done before and shake myself," but he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.

The Philistines took Samson and put out his eyes. They brought him down to Gaza, where they bound him with bronze fetters. They made him grind grain in a prison house. As Samson's hair began to grow back after he had been shaved,

the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and rejoice. They said, "Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand." When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, "Our god has delivered into our hands our enemy and the destroyer of our country who killed many of us."

When their hearts were merry, they said, "Call for Samson to entertain us," and they summoned him from prison. He performed for them; then they placed him between the pillars. Samson said to the youth holding him, "Allow me to feel the pillars on which the house stands." The house was filled with men and women, including all the Philistine leaders who were on the roof to watch Samson make sport.

Samson called out to the Lord, saying, "Remember me, O God, and give me strength just once more, that I may avenge myself on the Philistines for my two eyes." Samson grasped the two central pillars supporting the house, one with his right hand and the other with his left. He said, "Let me die with the Philistines," and he strained with all his might. The house fell on the lords and everyone in it, resulting in more deaths than those he had caused in life.

His brethren and all the house of his father came down, took him, brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying place of Manoah his father. He judged Israel twenty years.