³ Hear, kings!
    Listen, rulers!
I, to the Lord,
    I will sing.
I will make music to the Lord,
    Israel’s God.

⁴ Lord, when you set out from Seir,
    when you marched out from Edom’s fields, the land shook,
    the sky poured down,
    the clouds poured down water.
⁵ The mountains quaked
    before the Lord, the one from Sinai,
    before the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁶ In the days of Shamgar, Anath’s son,
    in the days of Jael, caravans ceased.
Those traveling by road
    kept to the backroads.
⁷ Villagers disappeared;
    they disappeared in Israel,
        until you,^[a] Deborah, arose,
        until you arose as a mother in Israel.
⁸ When they chose new gods,
    then war came to the city gates.^[b]
Yet there wasn’t a shield or spear to be seen
    among forty thousand in Israel!
⁹ My heart is with Israel’s commanders,
    who willingly offered themselves among the people—bless the Lord!

¹⁰ You who ride white donkeys,
    who sit on saddle blankets,^[c]
    who walk along the road: tell of it.
¹¹ To the sound of instruments^[d] at the watering places,
    there they repeat the Lord’s victories,
        his villagers’ victories in Israel.
Then the Lord’s people marched down to the city gates.
¹²     “Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
    Wake up, wake up, sing a song!
Arise, Barak!
    Capture your prisoners,
        Abinoam’s son!”
¹³ Then those who remained marched down against royalty;
    the Lord’s people marched down^[e] against warriors.
¹⁴ From Ephraim they set out^[f] into the valley,^[g]
    after you, Benjamin, with your people!
From Machir commanders marched down,
    and from Zebulun those carrying the official’s staff.
¹⁵ The leaders of Issachar came along with Deborah;
    Issachar was attached to Barak,
    and was sent into the valley behind him.
Among the clans of Reuben
    there was deep soul-searching.
¹⁶ “Why did you stay back among the sheep pens,
    listening to the music for the flocks?”
For the clans of Reuben
    there was deep soul-searching.
¹⁷ Gilead stayed on the other side of the Jordan,
    and Dan, why did he remain with the ships?
Asher stayed by the seacoast,
    camping at his harbors.
¹⁸ Zebulun is a people that readily risked death;
    Naphtali too in the high countryside.

¹⁹ Kings came and made war;
    the kings of Canaan fought
        at Taanach by Megiddo’s waters,
        but they captured no spoils of silver.
²⁰ The stars fought from the sky;
    from their orbits they fought against Sisera.
²¹ The Kishon River swept them away;
    the advancing river, the Kishon River.
    March on, my life, with might!

²² Then the horses’ hooves pounded
    with the galloping, galloping of their stallions.
²³ “Curse Meroz,” says the Lord’s messenger,
    “curse its inhabitants bitterly,
    because they didn’t come to the Lord’s aid,
    to the Lord’s aid against the warriors.”

²⁴ May Jael be blessed above all women;
    may the wife of Heber the Kenite
    be blessed above all tent-dwelling women.
²⁵ He asked for water, and she provided milk;
    she presented him cream in a majestic bowl.
²⁶ She reached out her hand for the stake,
    her strong hand for the worker’s hammer.
She struck Sisera;
    she crushed his head;
    she shattered and pierced his skull.
²⁷ At her feet he sank, fell, and lay flat;
    at her feet he sank, he fell;
    where he sank, there he fell—dead.

²⁸ Through the window she watched,
    Sisera’s mother looked longingly^[h] through the lattice.
“Why is his chariot taking so long to come?
    Why are the hoofbeats of his chariot horses delayed?”
²⁹ Her wisest attendants answer;
    indeed, she replies to herself:
³⁰ “Wouldn’t they be finding and dividing the loot?
    A girl or two for each warrior;
    loot of colored cloths for Sisera;
    loot of colored, embroidered cloths;
    two colored, embroidered cloths
    as loot for every neck.”

³¹ May all your enemies perish like this, Lord!
    But may your allies be like the sun, rising in its strength.