Book of Common Prayer

Thanksgiving for Victory

Praise to God the King

A song of praise. Of David.

¹⁵ Then Delilah said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t even trust me? This is the third time you have made me look foolish. You haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” ¹⁶ She kept bothering Samson about his secret day after day. He became so tired of it he felt he was going to die!

¹⁷ So he told her everything. He said, “I have never had my hair cut. I have been set apart to God as a Nazirite since I was born. If someone shaved my head, then I would lose my strength. I would become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸ Delilah saw that he had told her everything sincerely. So she sent a message to the kings of the Philistines. She said, “Come back one more time. He has told me everything.” So the kings of the Philistines came back to Delilah. They brought the silver they had promised to give her. ¹⁹ Delilah got Samson to go to sleep. He was lying in her lap. Then she called in a man to shave off the seven braids of Samson’s hair. In this way she began to make him weak. And Samson’s strength left him.

²⁰ Then she called out to him, “Samson, the Philistines are about to capture you!”

He woke up and thought, “I’ll get loose as I did before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

²¹ Then the Philistines captured Samson. They tore out his eyes. And they took him down to Gaza. They put bronze chains on him. They put him in prison and made him grind grain. ²² But his hair began to grow again.

Samson Dies

²³ The kings of the Philistines gathered to celebrate. They were going to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They said, “Our god has given us Samson our enemy.” ²⁴ When they saw him, they praised their god. They said,

²⁵ The people were having a good time at the celebration. They said, “Bring Samson out to perform for us.” So they brought Samson from the prison. He performed for them. They made him stand between the pillars of the temple of Dagon. ²⁶ A servant was holding his hand. Samson said to him, “Let me feel the pillars that hold up the temple. I want to lean against them.” ²⁷ Now the temple was full of men and women. All the kings of the Philistines were there. There were about 3,000 men and women on the roof.^[a] They watched Samson perform. ²⁸ Then Samson prayed to the Lord. He said, “Lord God, remember me. God, please give me strength one more time. Let me pay these Philistines back for putting out my two eyes!” ²⁹ Then Samson held the two center pillars of the temple. These two pillars supported the whole temple. He braced himself between the two pillars. His right hand was on one, and his left hand was on the other. ³⁰ Samson said, “Let me die with these Philistines!” Then he pushed as hard as he could. And the temple fell on the kings and all the people in it. So Samson killed more of the Philistines when he died than when he was alive.

³¹ Samson’s brothers and his whole family went down to get his body. They brought him back and buried him in the tomb of Manoah, his father. That tomb is between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol. Samson was a judge for the people of Israel for 20 years.

Final Warnings and Greetings

13 I will come to you for the third time. And remember, “Every case must be proved by two or three witnesses.”^{[a] 2} When I was with you the second time, I gave a warning to those who had sinned. Now I am away from you, and I give a warning to all the others. When I come to you again, I will not be easy with them. ³ You want proof that Christ is speaking through me. My proof is that he is not weak among you, but he is powerful. ⁴ It is true that he was weak when he was killed on the cross. But he lives now by God’s power. It is true that we are weak in Christ. But for you we will be alive in Christ by God’s power.

⁵ Look closely at yourselves. Test yourselves to see if you are living in the faith. You know that Christ Jesus is in you—unless you fail the test. ⁶ But I hope you will see that we ourselves have not failed the test. ⁷ We pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. It is not important to see that we have passed the test. But it is important that you do what is right, even if it seems that we have failed. ⁸ We cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. ⁹ We are happy to be weak, if you are strong. And we pray that you will grow stronger and stronger. ¹⁰ I am writing this while I am away from you. I am writing so that when I come I will not have to be harsh in my use of authority. The Lord gave me this authority to use to make you stronger, not to destroy you.

¹¹ Now, brothers, I say good-bye. Live in harmony. Do what I have asked you to do. Agree with each other, and live in peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.

²⁵ A woman was there who had been bleeding for the past 12 years. ²⁶ She had suffered very much. Many doctors had tried to help her. She had spent all the money she had, but she was not improving. She was getting worse. ²⁷ When the woman heard about Jesus, she followed him with the people and touched his coat. ²⁸ The woman thought, “If I can even touch his coat, that will be enough to heal me.” ²⁹ When she touched his coat, her bleeding stopped. She could feel in her body that she was healed.

³⁰ At once Jesus felt power go out from him. So he stopped and turned around. Then he asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹ The followers said, “There are so many people pushing against you! And you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

³² But Jesus continued looking around to see who had touched him. ³³ The woman knew that she was healed. So she came and bowed at Jesus’ feet. Shaking with fear, she told him the whole story. ³⁴ Jesus said to the woman, “Dear woman, you are made well because you believed. Go in peace. You will have no more suffering.”