The woman bore a son, and named him Samson. And the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.

Then his father and his mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all my people, that you go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?" And Samson said to his father, "Get her for me, for she is the right one for me."

Then Samson went down with his father and his mother to Timnah, and came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion roared against him.

He went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson.

His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there, since young men used to do so.

Samson said to them, "Let me now put forth a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and figure it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothing.

And it happened on the fourthth day, that they said to Samson's wife, "Entice your husband, that he may tell us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you called us to impoverish us? Is it not so?"

Samson's wife wept before him, and said, "You just hate me, and do not love me. You have put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and haven't told it me." And he said to her, "Behold, I haven't told it to my father or my mother, and shall I tell you?"

But Samson's wife was given to his companion, who had been his friend.

But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a young goat; and he said, "I will go in to my wife into the room." But her father wouldn't allow him to go in.

Samson said to them, "This time I will be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I harm them."

Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned tail to tail, and put a torch in the midst between every two tails.

Then the Philistines said, "Who has done this?" They said, "Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife, and given her to his companion." The Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

Samson said to them, "If you behave like this, surely I will be avenged of you, and after that I will cease."

The men of Judah said, "Why have you come up against us?" They said, "We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he has done to us."

Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?" He said to them, "As they did to me, so have I done to them."

They said to him, "We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines." Samson said to them, "Swear to me that you will not fall on me yourselves."

Samson said, "With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps on heaps; with the jawbone of a donkey I have struck a thousand men."

Samson went to Gaza, and saw a prostitute there, and went in to her.

The Gazites were told, "Samson is here." They surrounded him, and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city, and were quiet all night, saying, "Wait until morning light, then we will kill him."

Samson stayed in bed until midnight, and arose at midnight, and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is overlooking Hebron.

Delilah said to Samson, "Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you can be bound and subdued."

Samson said to her, "If they bind me with seven green cords that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and be as another man."

Now she had an ambush waiting in the inner room. She said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson." He broke the cords, as a string of tow is broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known.

Delilah said to Samson, "Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now please tell me with which you might be bound."

So Delilah took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson." The ambush was waiting in the inner room. He broke them off his arms like a thread.

Delilah said to Samson, "Until now, you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me with what you might be bound." He said to her, "If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web."

She fastened it with the pin, and said to him, "The Philistines are on you, Samson." He awakened out of his sleep, and plucked away the pin of the beam, and the web.

She said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson." He awoke out of his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." But he didn't know that the LORD had departed from him.

The lords of the Philistines gathered them together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to celebrate; for they said, "Our god has delivered Samson our enemy into our hand."

It happened, when their hearts were merry, that they said, "Call for Samson, that he may entertain us." They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars;

and Samson said to the boy who held him by the hand, "Allow me to feel the pillars whereupon the house rests, that I may lean on them."

Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were on the roof about three thousand men and women, who saw while Samson made sport.

Samson called to the LORD, and said, "Lord GOD, please remember me, and please strengthen me only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes."

Samson took hold of the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and leaned on them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left.

Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." He bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell on the lords, and on all the people who were therein. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than those who he killed in his life.