Judges 5

¹Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying,

²Praise ye the LORD

For the avenging of Israel,

When the people willingly offered themselves.

³Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes;

I, even I, will sing unto the LORD ;

I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.

⁴LORD , when thou wentest out of Seir,

When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,

The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,

The clouds also dropped water.

⁵The mountains melted from before the LORD ,

Even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.

⁶In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath,

In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied,

And the travellers walked through byways.

⁷The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel,

Until that I Deborah arose,

That I arose a mother in Israel.

⁸They chose new gods;

Then was war in the gates:

Was there a shield or spear seen

Among forty thousand in Israel?

⁹My heart is toward the governors of Israel,

That offered themselves willingly among the people.

Bless ye the LORD .

¹⁰Speak, ye that ride on white asses,

Ye that sit in judgment,

And walk by the way.

¹¹They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water,

There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the LORD ,

Even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel:

Then shall the people of the LORD go down to the gates.

¹²Awake, awake, Deborah:

Awake, awake, utter a song:

Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.

¹³Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people:

The LORD made me have dominion over the mighty.

¹⁴Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek;

After thee, Benjamin, among thy people;

Out of Machir came down governors,

And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

¹⁵And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah;

Even Issachar, and also Barak:

He was sent on foot into the valley.

For the divisions of Reuben

There were great thoughts of heart.

¹⁶Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds,

To hear the bleatings of the flocks?

For the divisions of Reuben

There were great searchings of heart.

¹⁷Gilead abode beyond Jordan:

And why did Dan remain in ships?

Asher continued on the sea shore,

And abode in his breaches.

¹⁸Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death

In the high places of the field.

¹⁹The kings came and fought,

Then fought the kings of Canaan

In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo;

They took no gain of money.

²⁰They fought from heaven;

The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

²¹The river of Kishon swept them away,

That ancient river, the river Kishon.

O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength.

²²Then were the horsehoofs broken

By the means of the pransings, the pransings of their mighty ones.

²³Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD ,

Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;

Because they came not to the help of the LORD ,

To the help of the LORD against the mighty.

²⁴Blessed above women shall Jael

The wife of Heber the Kenite be,

Blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

²⁵He asked water, and she gave him milk;

She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.

²⁶She put her hand to the nail,

And her right hand to the workmen's hammer;

And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,

When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.

²⁷At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down:

At her feet he bowed, he fell:

Where he bowed, there he fell down dead.

²⁸The mother of Sisera looked out at a window,

And cried through the lattice,

Why is his chariot so long in coming?

Why tarry the wheels of his chariots?

²⁹Her wise ladies answered her,

Yea, she returned answer to herself,

³⁰Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey;

To every man a damsel or two;

To Sisera a prey of divers colours,

A prey of divers colours of needlework,

Of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil?

³¹So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD :

But let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.

And the land had rest forty years.