Judges 4

1After Ehud died, the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh.

2So Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

3The Israelites cried out to Yahweh, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

4Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

5She used to sit under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came up to her for judgment.

6She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “Has not Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun.

7I will draw Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, out to meet you at the Kishon River, with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?”

8Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”

9She said, “I will certainly go with you. But the road you are taking will not lead to your glory, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.

10Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together at Kedesh, and ten thousand men went up under his command, and Deborah went up with him.

11Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.

12When Sisera was told that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,

13Sisera called out all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the Kishon River.

14Then Deborah said to Barak, “Get up! This is the day on which Yahweh has given Sisera into your hand. Has not Yahweh gone out ahead of you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.

15Yahweh threw Sisera and all his chariots and his whole army into a panic before Barak, and they fell to the sword. Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.

16Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth-hagoyim, and Sisera’s whole army fell by the sword; not a single man was left.

17Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.

18Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come in, my lord, come in here with me. Do not be afraid.” So he went into her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.

19He said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him again.

20He said to her, “Stand at the entrance of the tent. If anyone comes and asks you, ‘Is there a man here?’ say, ‘No.’”

21But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and picked up a hammer. She went to him quietly and drove the peg through his temple until it went down into the ground, while he lay fast asleep and exhausted. So he died.

22Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. She said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man you are looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg through his temple.

23So on that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites.

24The hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.