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

² With requital has Israel been avenged; praise the LORD with a song for avenging Israel.

³ Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes; I will sing to the LORD; I will sing praise to the LORD God of Israel.

⁴ LORD, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst in the fields of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.

⁵ The mountains melted from before the LORD, even this Sinai from the presence of the LORD the Holy One of Israel.

⁶ In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Anael, the highways were cut off, and the travellers who once walked on main roads, had to go through the crooked byways.

⁷ The little villages ceased in Israel; they ceased, until I Deborah arose, I arose as a mother in Israel.

⁸ The LORD will choose new things; then the barley bread, and a sword or a spear shall not be seen among forty thousand in Israel.

⁹ My heart said to the lawgiver of Israel, They that are chosen among the people bless the LORD.

¹⁰ O you who ride on white asses, you who dwell in houses, and you who travel on the highways,

¹¹ Meditate on the words of the inquirers, who are among the teachers; they shall execute the righteousness of the LORD, even his righteousness which he has multiplied in Israel; then shall the people of the LORD march to the gates.

¹² Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, utter a song; arise, Barak, and lead away your captives, O son of Abinoam.

¹³ Then the deliverer went down to sing praise before the LORD; thou hast given me victory by the hand of a man out of Ephraim.

¹⁴ And Baraks works are known in Amalek; after you marched Benjamin with affection for you; out of Machir came forth a seer, and out of Zebulun those who write with the pen of a scribe.

¹⁵ And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar is like Barak among the peoples; he was sent on foot to a portion of Reuben; great are those who give oracles to comfort the heart.

¹⁶ Why abodest thou on the highways to hear the bleatings of the wild asses? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.

¹⁷ Gad abode beyond the Jordan; and Dan brought ships to the harbor; Asher dwelt on the sea shore, and remained in its harbors.

¹⁸ Zebulun and Naphtali were peoples who jeopardized their lives on the high places of his field.

¹⁹ The kings came and fought; then fought the kings of Canaan; they fought in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; they took no goods nor money.

²⁰ The stars fought from their courses; they fought from heaven against Sisera by the river Kishon.

²¹ The river Kishon and the river Karmin swept them away. O my soul, you have defeated an army!

²² Then the hoofs of his horses fell down, were broken because of the prancing of his mighty ones.

²³ Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse it, and curse the inhabitants thereof, because they came not with men to the help of the LORD.

²⁴ Blessed above women shall Anael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent.

²⁵ He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a giant bowl.

²⁶ She put her hand to the peg and her right hand to the carpenters hammer, and with the hammer she struck Sisera and crushed his head, when she had struck and pierced his temples.

²⁷ At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at the place where he bowed, there he fell down dead, the plunderer.

²⁸ The mother of Sisera looked out of the window and cried through the lattice, Why are the chariots of my son so long in coming? Why tarries the clatter of his chariots?

²⁹ Her wise ladies answered her, saying,

³⁰ Perhaps he went and found great spoil, dividing the prey, giving to every man a mule and great booty, and to Sisera a prey of diverse colors of needlework and divers colors of embroidered work, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil.

³¹ So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD; but let them that love thee be like the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest for forty years.