Judges 5:10-30

¹⁰Think about this—you who ride on white donkeys sitting on rugs for saddles, and you who walk along the road.

¹¹Hear the voices of those who sing at the watering places. There they tell again of Yahweh's righteous deeds, and the righteous actions of his warriors in Israel. Then the people of Yahweh went down to the city gates.

¹²Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, sing a song! Get up, Barak, and capture your prisoners, you son of Abinoam.

¹³Then the survivors came down to the nobles; the people of Yahweh came down to me with the warriors.

¹⁴They came from Ephraim, whose root is in Amalek; the people of Benjamin followed you. From Machir commanders came down, and from Zebulun those who carry an officer's staff.

¹⁵My princes in Issachar were with Deborah; and Issachar was with Barak rushing after him into the valley under his command. Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

¹⁶Why did you sit between the fireplaces, listening to the shepherds playing their pipes for their flocks? As for the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

¹⁷Gilead stayed on the other side of the Jordan; and Dan, why did he wander about on ships? Asher remained on the coast and lived close to his harbors.

¹⁸Zebulun was a tribe who would risk their lives to the point of death, and Naphtali, also, on the field of battle.

¹⁹The kings came, they fought; the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo. But they took away no silver as plunder.

²⁰From heaven the stars fought, from their paths across the heavens they fought against Sisera.

²¹The Kishon River swept them away, that old river, the Kishon River. March on my soul, be strong!

²²Then came the sound of horses' hooves— galloping, the galloping of his mighty ones.

²³'Curse Meroz!' says the angel of Yahweh. 'Surely curse its inhabitants!— because they did not come to help Yahweh— to help Yahweh in the battle against the mighty warriors.'

²⁴Jael is blessed more than all other women, Jael (the wife of Heber the Kenite), she is more blessed than all the women who live in tents.

²⁵The man asked for water, and she gave him milk; she brought him butter in a dish fit for princes.

²⁶She put her hand to the tent peg, and her right hand to the workman's hammer; with the hammer she struck Sisera, she crushed his head. She smashed his skull into pieces when she pierced him through the side of his head.

²⁷He collapsed between her feet, he fell and he lay there. Between her feet he fell limp. The place he collapsed is where he was violently killed.

²⁸Out of a window she looked— the mother of Sisera looked through the lattice and she called out in sadness, 'Why has it taken his chariot so long to come? Why have the hoofbeats of the horses that pull his chariots been delayed?'

²⁹Her wisest princesses replied, and she gave herself the same answer:

³⁰'Have they not found and divided up the plunder? —A womb, two wombs for every man; the plunder of dyed fabric for Sisera, the plunder of dyed fabric embroidered, two pieces of dyed fabric embroidered for the necks of those who plunder?'