Douay Rheims Original ↷
Judges 16 📜 📕 ↷
Samson Escapes Gaza
1 HE went also into Gaza, and saw there a woman that was an harlot, and went in unto her.📜💬📚
2 Which when the Philisthiims had heard, and it was bruited among them, that Samson was entered into the city, they compassed him, keepers being set in the gate of the city: & there all the night waiting with silence, that in the morning they might kill him going out.📜💬📚
3 But Samson slept until midnight, and then arising he took both the leaves of the gates, with their posts and lock, an laying them on his shoulders, carried them to the top of the mountain, which looketh toward Hebron.📜💬📚
Samson and Delilah
4 After these things he loved a woman, which dwelt in Valley Sorec, and she was called Dalila.📜💬📚
5 And the Princes of the Philisthiims came to her, and said: Deceive him, and learn of him, wherein he hath so great strength, and how we may be able to overcome him, and being bound to afflict him: which if thou shalt do, we will give thee every one a thousand and an hundred pieces of silver.📜💬📚
6 Dalila therefore spake to Samson: Tell me, I beseech thee, wherein thy greatest strength is, and what it is wherewith being bound thou canst not break forth.📜💬📚
7 To whom Samson answered: If I shall be bound with seven cords of sinews not yet dry, and moist as yet, I shall be weak as other men.📜💬📚
8 And the Princes of the Philisthiims brought unto her seven cords, as he had said: with the which she bound him,📜💬📚
9 ambushments lying secretly in wait near her, and in the chamber expecting the end of the thing, and she cried to him: The Philisthiims upon thee Samson. Who brake the bands, as if a man should break a thread of tow twined with spittle, when it hath taken the savour of fire: and it was not known wherein his strength was.📜💬📚
10 And Dalila said to him: Behold thou hast deluded me, and hast spoken false: now at the least tell me wherewith thou mayest be bound.📜💬📚
11 To whom he answered: If I shall be bound with new cords, that were never occupied, I shall be weak and like to other men.📜💬📚
12 With the which Dalila again bound him, and cried: The Philisthiims upon thee Samson, ambushments being prepared in the chamber. Who did so break the bands as threads of linen cloth.📜💬📚
13 And Dalila said to him again: How long deceivest thou me, and speakest false? Shew wherewith thou mayest be bound. To whom Samson answered: If thou plat seven hairs of my head with a hair lace, & fasten a nail tied round about with them in the ground, I shall be weak.📜💬📚
14 Which when Dalila had done, she said to him: The Philisthiims upon thee Samson. Who rising up from sleep drew out the nail with the hairs and the hair lace.📜💬📚
Delilah Learns the Secret
15 And Dalila said to him: How doest thou say that thou lovest me, whereas thy mind is not with me? These three times thou hast lied to me, and wouldst not tell wherein thy greatest strength is.📜💬📚
16 And when she molested him, and continually hung upon him for many days, not giving him space to rest, his soul fainted, and was wearied even unto death.📜💬📚
17 Then opening the truth of the thing, he said to her: There never came iron upon my head, because I am a Nazarite, that is to say, consecrated to God from my mother's womb: if my head shall be shaven, my strength shall depart from me, and I shall fail, and shall be as other men.📜💬📚
18 And she seeing that he had confessed to her all his mind, sent to the princes of the Philisthiims and willed them: Come up yet once more, for now he hath opened his heart to me. Who went up taking with them the money which they had promised.📜💬📚
19 But she made him to sleep upon her knees, and to lay his head in her bosom. And she called a barber, and shaved his seven hairs, and began to drive him away, and thrust him from her: for immediately the strength departed from him:📜💬📚
20 and she said: The Philisthiims upon thee Samson. Who arising from sleep, said in his mind: I will go forth as I did before, and will shake my self, not knowing that our Lord was departed from him.📜💬📚
21 Whom when the Philisthiims had apprehended, forthwith they plucked forth his eyes, and led him to Gaza bound with chains, and being shut up in prison they made him grind.📜💬📚
22 And now his hairs had begun to grow again,📜💬📚
Samson's Vengeance and Death
23 and the Princes of the Philisthiims assembled in one, that they might immolate magnifical hosts to Dagon their god, and might feast, saying: Our god hath delivered our enemy Samson into our hands.📜💬📚
24 Which thing the people also seeing, praised their god, & said the same things: Our god hath delivered our adversary into our hands, who destroyed our country, and killed very many.📜💬📚
25 And rejoicing throughout their banquets, when they had now taken their good cheer, they commanded that Samson should be called, and should play before them. Who being brought out of prison played before them, and they made him to stand between two pillars.📜💬📚
26 Who said to the servant that governed his steps: Suffer me to touch the pillars, on which all the house stayeth, and let me lean upon them, and rest a little.📜💬📚
27 And the house was full of men and women, and there were all the Princes of the Philisthiims, also from the roof and higher part, about three thousand of both sex beholding Samson playing.📜💬📚
28 But he invocating our Lord, said: Lord God remember me, and restore now to me mine old strength my God, that I may revenge me of mine enemies, and for the loss of two eyes may receive one revenge.📜💬📚
29 And taking both the pillars, on which the house rested, and holding the one in his right hand, and the other in his left,📜💬📚
30 he said: Let me die with the Philisthiims. And the pillars being strongly shaken, the house fell upon all the Princes, and the rest of the multitude that was there: and he killed many, more dying, than before he had killed living.📜💬📚
31 And his brethren going down and all his kindred, they took his body, and buried it betwixt Saraa and Esthaol in the Sepulchre of his father Manue. And he judged Israel twenty years.📜💬📚
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