¹And Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, and they said,

²“For the effecting of deliverance in Israel,

When the people were willing,

Bless the Lord.

³Hear, O kings;

Give ear, O princes.

I myself shall sing to the Lord;

I shall sing psalms to the Lord God of Israel.

⁴Lord, when you went out from Seir,

When you marched from the open country of Edom,

The earth trembled,

And not only did the heavens drip,

But the thick clouds also precipitated water.

⁵Mountains flowed on account of the Lord

– Sinai here did

On account of the Lord God of Israel.

⁶In the days of Shamgar

The son of Anath,

In the days of Jael,

They avoided the highways,

And those that went on travels

Went by twisting ways.

⁷Leadership ceased in Israel

– It ceased –

Until I, Deborah, arose,

When I arose as a mother in Israel.

⁸It chose new gods,

Then there was war at the gates.

Was a shield seen

– Or a spear –

Among the forty thousand in Israel?

⁹My heart turned to the legislators of Israel,

Those who were willing among the people.

Bless the Lord.

¹⁰Riders on white she-asses,

You who sit in judgment,

And you who walk on the road,

Speak!

¹¹At the sound of archers,

Between water troughs,

There they celebrate

The righteous deeds of the Lord

– The righteous deeds

Of his leadership in Israel.

That is when the people of the Lord

Went down to the gates.

¹²Awake, awake, Deborah!

Awake, awake; utter a song.

Arise, Barak!

And make your captivity captive,

O son of Abinoam.

¹³At that time he gave dominion

Over the nobility of the people

To a survivor.

The Lord gave me dominion

Over warriors.

¹⁴From Ephraim came their root

Against Amalek.

And after you came Benjamin,

Among your people.

From Machir, legislators came down,

And from Zebulun,

They that hold out the rod of the recording scribe.

¹⁵But my princes among Issachar were with Deborah.

And as was Issachar, so was Barak.

He was sent to the valley on foot.

Among the divisions of Reuben,

Great were the impressions on the heart.

¹⁶Why did you dwell between the sheepfolds,

So as to hear the bleating of the flocks?

Among the divisions of Reuben,

Great were the searchings of the heart.

¹⁷Gilead dwelt across the Jordan,

And why did Dan inhabit ships?

Asher stayed on the coast of the seas

And dwelt in its creeks.

¹⁸Zebulun is a people

Who despised mortal danger.

Naphtali likewise

In the heights of the open countryside.

¹⁹Kings came and fought,

Then the kings of Canaan fought

In Taanach by the water of Megiddo.

They did not take any spoils of silver.

²⁰They fought from heaven;

The stars fought

Against Sisera from their courses.

²¹The Kishon Brook swept them away

– The brook of the ancients,

The Kishon Brook.

My own self was to tread there in strength.

²²Then the tracks of cavalry were imprinted at the prancing

– The prancing of his mighty ones.

²³‘Curse Meroz’,

Said the angel of the Lord;

‘Curse its inhabitants vehemently,

For they did not come

To the Lord's help

– To the Lord's help

Against the warriors.’

²⁴May Jael be the most blessed of women

– The wife of Heber the Kenite –

May she be the most blessed

Of women in the tent.

²⁵He asked for water;

She gave him milk.

In a bowl for the nobility,

She offered buttermilk.

²⁶Her hand reached for the peg

And her right hand for the workmen's hammer,

And she hammered Sisera.

She crushed his head

And dashed and pierced his temple.

²⁷He sank down and fell

And lay between her feet.

He sank down and fell between her feet.

Where he sank down,

There he fell,

Slain.

²⁸Sisera's mother peered through the window

And cried aloud through the latticework,

‘Why is his chariot delayed in coming?

Why is the clattering noise of his chariots late?’

²⁹Her princesses in their wisdom answered;

She even responded in her own words,

³⁰‘Have they not found,

And are they not dividing, the spoil?

A maiden or two per headcount of a man,

Spoil of dyed garments for Sisera,

Spoil of dyed garments with embroidery,

Dyed double-sided embroidery

For the necks of the spoil-takers.’

³¹May all your enemies perish that way,

O Lord,

But let those who love him

Be like the rising of the sun

In its strength.”

And the land was quiet for forty years.