The song of Deborah and Barak
1On that day Deborah and Barak, son of Abinoam, sang this song. They said:
2‘Men in the land_of_Israel
prepared to go to war.
They came because they wanted to come.
No one said they must come.
Praise the Lord.
3Kings and rulers, you must listen.
I will sing to the Lord.
I want to make music for the Lord,
the God of Israel.
4Lord, when you came
from the land of Seir
where the people of Edom live,
the earth shook,
and water came from the clouds in the sky.
5The mountains trembled before the Lord,
who came from Mount Sinai.
The mountains trembled
before the God of Israel.
6In the time when Shamgar,
son of Anath, lived,
and in the time of Jael,
it was too dangerous to walk on the roads,
and people had to walk through the fields.
7No one in the land_of_Israel could work outside the towns
until I, Deborah, came
to be a mother for the Israelites.
8When the Israelites worshipped other gods,
war came to their towns.
But not one of Israel's 40 000 soldiers
took a shield or a spear to go to war.
9I am thankful to the people
and the leaders_of_Israel
who came because they wanted to come.
Praise the Lord.
10You must speak and tell the people,
all the people sitting
on beautiful saddles on brown donkeys,
and you who walk along the roads.
11The people getting water for their animals
talk about the Lord
who defeated his enemies,
and about the people who
can now live outside the towns.
The people of the Lord
came to the gates from the town.
12They said: “Deborah, you must wake up,
get up and sing.
Get up, Barak, son of Abinoam.
You must prepare
to catch your enemies.”
13Then the people of my nation
who were still_alive
came with their leaders.
The people of the Lord came to me.
They were all brave soldiers.
14Some of the people of Ephraim
came to the valley,
and the people of Benjamin came with them.
There were leaders who came
from Makir and from Zebulun.
15The leaders of the Issachar tribe came with Deborah
and their men went with Barak into the valley.
But the Reuben people did not come to help.
They just sat with their sheep
where they drank water.
16Why did you stay with your sheep?
Why did you listen to the flutes of the shepherds?
The Reuben people sat there,
only thinking of war.
17The men of Gilead stayed
on the other side of the Jordan River.
Why did the men of Dan stay with their boats?
The men of Asher sat next to the sea
with their boats.
18But the people of Zebulun
and Naphtali were not afraid
to go to war on the mountains and hills.
19The kings of Canaan came to start a war
in Taanach, near the water of Megiddo,
but they did not defeat Israel.
They did not win or take any silver.
20The stars in the sky above made war.
They started the war_against Sisera.
21The water of the old Kishon River
washed away the people of Sisera.
But I was strong, and I did not stop.
22The feet of the horses
made a loud_noise on the ground,
when Sisera's soldiers fled from them.
23The Angel_of_the_Lord said:
“You must curse the town of Meroz.
You must curse its people and
not feel sorry for them,
because their soldiers did
not come to help the Lord.”
24But God will bless Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite man.
He will bless her more than
any other women living in a tent.
25Sisera asked her for water,
but she gave him milk.
She gave him cream in a beautiful bowl.
26She took a tent-peg in one hand
and a hammer in her other hand.
She killed Sisera. She hit the tent-peg
through his head into the ground.
27He was down on the ground
and lay there dead between her feet.
28Sisera's mother looked through her window.
She cried and said:
“Why is he taking so long?
Why don't we hear his war-chariots coming?”
29She and the wise women who help her said:
30“They won the war
and now they are taking the plunder
from the people whom they have defeated.
They are giving the plunder
that they took to the other men.
Every man will get one or 2 girls.
Sisera will get beautiful sashes
that he can put around his neck
to show that he has won the war.”
31Lord, I pray that
all your enemies will be like Sisera,
and that everyone who loves You
will be like the sun that shines brightly.’
There was peace in Israel for 40 years.
