Judges 4:1-12

¹After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did what was evil in the Lord's sight.

²So the Lord sold them to Jabin, king of Canaan, who ruled from Hazor. His army commander was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

³The Israelites cried out to the Lord to help them, for Sisera had nine hundred iron chariots and he cruelly mistreated them for twenty years.

⁴Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, was a prophet, and she was leading Israel as a judge at that time.

⁵She would sit under Deborah's Palm between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for her decisions.

⁶She sent for Barak, son of Abinoam, from the town of Kedesh in Naphtali and told him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, orders you: ‘Go to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and lead them there.

⁷I will bring Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River, and hand him over to you.”

⁸Barak replied, “If you come with me, I'll go; but if you don't come with me, I won't go.”

⁹“I'll definitely go with you,” Deborah answered, “but if you're going to take that route then you won't receive any respect, because the Lord will give Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.

¹⁰Barak called up the armies of Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men assembled under his command. Deborah was also there with him.

¹¹(Heber the Kenite had separated from the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, and had set up his tent at the large tree in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.)

¹²Sisera heard that Barak, son of Abinoam, had gone to Mount Tabor,