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5:1  At that time, Deborah and Barak, Abinoam’s son, sang:
5:2  When hair is long in Israel, when people willingly offer themselves—bless the Lord!
5:3  Hear, kings! Listen, rulers! I, to the Lord, I will sing. I will make music to the Lord, Israel’s God.
5:4  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.
5:5  The mountains quaked before the Lord, the one from Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel.
5:6  In the days of Shamgar, Anath’s son, in the days of Jael, caravans ceased. Those traveling by road kept to the backroads.
5:7  Villagers disappeared; they disappeared in Israel, until you, Deborah, arose, until you arose as a mother in Israel.
5:8  When they chose new gods, then war came to the city gates. Yet there wasn’t a shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand in Israel!
5:9  My heart is with Israel’s commanders, who willingly offered themselves among the people—bless the Lord!
5:10  You who ride white donkeys, who sit on saddle blankets, who walk along the road: tell of it.
5:11  To the sound of instruments 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.
5:12  “Wake up, wake up, Deborah! Wake up, wake up, sing a song! Arise, Barak! Capture your prisoners, Abinoam’s son!”
5:13  Then those who remained marched down against royalty; the Lord’s people marched down against warriors.
5:14  From Ephraim they set out into the valley, after you, Benjamin, with your people! From Machir commanders marched down, and from Zebulun those carrying the official’s staff.
5:15  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.
5:16  “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.
5:17  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.
5:18  Zebulun is a people that readily risked death; Naphtali too in the high countryside.
5:19  Kings came and made war; the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by Megiddo’s waters, but they captured no spoils of silver.
5:20  The stars fought from the sky; from their orbits they fought against Sisera.
5:21  The Kishon River swept them away; the advancing river, the Kishon River. March on, my life, with might!
5:22  Then the horses’ hooves pounded with the galloping, galloping of their stallions.
5:23  “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.”
5:24  May Jael be blessed above all women; may the wife of Heber the Kenite be blessed above all tent-dwelling women.
5:25  He asked for water, and she provided milk; she presented him cream in a majestic bowl.
5:26  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.
5:27  At her feet he sank, fell, and lay flat; at her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell—dead.
5:28  Through the window she watched, Sisera’s mother looked longingly through the lattice. “Why is his chariot taking so long to come? Why are the hoofbeats of his chariot horses delayed?”
5:29  Her wisest attendants answer; indeed, she replies to herself:
5:30  “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.”
5:31  May all your enemies perish like this, Lord! But may your allies be like the sun, rising in its strength. And the land was peaceful for forty years.