16. Every day she made his life miserable with her questions. She pestered him until he wished he were dead.
17. Finally, he told her the truth. He told her, “Because I’m a Nazirite, no one has ever cut the hair on my head. I was dedicated to God before I was born. If my hair is ever shaved off, my strength will leave me. Then I’ll be like any other man.”
18. When Delilah realized that he had told her everything, she sent a message to the Philistine rulers, “Come here once more.” (She did this because Samson had told her everything.) So the Philistine rulers arrived with the money in their hands.
19. Delilah put Samson to sleep on her lap. She called for a man to shave off his seven braids. Then she began to torture him because his strength had left him.
20. She said, “Samson, the Philistines are attacking!” Samson woke up. He thought, “I’ll get out of this as usual and shake myself free.” (He didn’t realize that the Lord had left him.)
21. The Philistines grabbed him. They poked out his eyes and took him to the prison in Gaza. They tied him up with double chains and made him grind grain in the mill there.
22. But his hair started to grow back as soon as it was shaved off.
23. Now, the Philistine rulers gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon and to celebrate. They said, “Our god handed Samson, our enemy, over to us.”
24. When the people saw him, they praised their god. They said,“Our god gave our enemy,destroyer of our landand killer of so many,into our very hand!”
25. When all the Philistines were enjoying themselves, they said, “Call Samson in to entertain us.”Samson was called from the prison, and he made them laugh. They made him stand between two columns.
26. Samson told the young man who was leading him by the hand, “Let me rest. Let me touch the columns on which the building stands so that I can lean against them.”
27. The building was filled with people. All the Philistine rulers were there. On the roof there were about three thousand men and women who watched Samson entertain them.
28. Then Samson called to the Lord, “Almighty Lord, please remember me! God, give me strength just one more time! Let me get even with the Philistines for at least one of my two eyes.”
29. Samson felt the two middle columns on which the building stood. With his right hand on one column and his left on the other, he pushed hard against them.
30. “Let me die with the Philistines,” he said. With that, he pushed with all his might, and the building fell on the rulers and everyone in it. So he killed more Philistines when he died than he had when he was alive.
31. Then his relatives and his father’s whole family went to Gaza. They took Samson and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah.Samson had judged Israel for 20 years.