Book of Common Prayer

A song of David.

¹⁵ Then Delilah said to Samson, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t even trust me? You refuse to tell me your secret. This is the third time you made me look foolish. You haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” ¹⁶ She kept bothering Samson day after day. He got so tired of her asking him about his secret that he felt like he was going to die. ¹⁷ Finally, Samson told Delilah everything. He said, “I have never had my hair cut. I was dedicated to God before I was born. If someone shaved my head, I would lose my strength. I would become as weak as any other man.”

¹⁸ Delilah saw that Samson had told her his secret. She sent a message to the rulers of the Philistines. She said, “Come back again. Samson has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines came back and brought the money that they had promised to give her.

¹⁹ Delilah got Samson to go to sleep with his head lying in her lap. Then she called in a man to shave off the seven braids of Samson’s hair. In this way she made Samson weak, and his strength left him. ²⁰ Then Delilah called out to him, “Samson, the Philistine men are going to capture you!” He woke up and thought, “I will escape as I did before and free myself.” But Samson did not know that the Lord had left him.

²¹ The Philistine men captured Samson. They tore out his eyes and took him down to the city of Gaza. Then they put chains on him to keep him from running away. They put him in prison and made him work grinding grain. ²² But his hair began to grow again.

²³ The Philistine rulers came together to celebrate. They were going to offer a great sacrifice to their god Dagon. They said, “Our god helped us defeat Samson our enemy.” ²⁴ When the Philistines saw Samson, they praised their god. They said,

²⁵ The people were having a good time at the celebration. So they said, “Bring Samson out. We want to make fun of him.” So they brought Samson from the prison and made fun of him. They made him stand between the columns in the temple of the god Dagon. ²⁶ A servant was holding his hand. Samson said to him, “Put me where I can feel the columns that hold this temple up. I want to lean against them.”

²⁷ The temple was crowded with men and women. All the Philistine rulers were there. There were about 3000 men and women on the roof of the temple. They were laughing and making fun of Samson. ²⁸ Then Samson said a prayer to the Lord, “Lord God, remember me. God, please give me strength one more time. Let me do this one thing to punish these Philistines for tearing out both of my eyes!” ²⁹ Then Samson took hold of the two columns in the center of the temple that supported the whole temple. He braced himself between the two columns. One column was at his right side and the other at his left side. ³⁰ Samson said, “Let me die with these Philistines!” Then he pushed as hard as he could, and the temple fell on the rulers and everyone in it. In this way Samson killed many more Philistines when he died than when he was alive.

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

Final Warnings and Greetings

13 This will be my third time to visit you. And remember, “For every complaint there must be two or three people to say that they know it is true.”^{[a] 2} When I was with you the second time, I gave a warning to those who had sinned. I am not there now, but I am giving another warning to them and to anyone else who has sinned: When I come to you again, I will punish you. ³ You want proof that Christ is speaking through me. My proof is that he is not weak in dealing with you but is showing his power among you. ⁴ It is true that Christ was weak when he was killed on the cross, but he lives now by God’s power. It is also true that we share his weakness, but in dealing with you, we will be alive in him by God’s power.

⁵ Look closely at yourselves. Test yourselves to see if you are living in the faith. Don’t you realize that Christ Jesus is in you? Of course, if you fail the test, he is not in you. ⁶ But I hope you will see that we have not failed the test. ⁷ We pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Our concern here is not for people to see that we have passed the test in our work with you. Our main concern is that you do what is right, even if it looks as if we have failed the test. ⁸ We cannot do anything that is against the truth but only what promotes the truth. ⁹ We are happy to be weak if you are strong. And this is what we pray—that your lives will be made completely right again. ¹⁰ I’m writing this before I come so that when I am there I will not have to use my authority to punish you. The Lord gave me that authority to make you stronger, not to destroy you.

¹¹ Now, brothers and sisters, be filled with joy. Try to make everything right, and 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 There among the people was a woman who had been bleeding for the past twelve years. ²⁶ She had suffered very much. Many doctors had tried to help her, and all the money she had was spent, but she was not improving. In fact, her sickness was getting worse.

²⁷ The woman heard about Jesus, so she followed him with the other people and touched his coat. ²⁸ She thought, “If I can just touch his clothes, that will be enough to heal me.” ²⁹ As soon as she touched his coat, her bleeding stopped. She felt that her body was healed from all the suffering. ³⁰ Jesus immediately felt power go out from him, so he stopped and turned around. “Who touched my clothes?” he asked.

³¹ The followers said to Jesus, “There are so many people pushing against you. But you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

³² But Jesus continued looking for the one who touched him. ³³ The woman knew that she was healed, so she came and bowed at Jesus’ feet. She was shaking with fear. She told Jesus the whole story. ³⁴ He said to her, “Dear woman, you are made well because you believed. Go in peace. You will not suffer anymore.”