¹ When my desire was for the fate of my people to be changed and to make Israel well, then the sin of Ephraim was made clear, and the evil-doing of Samaria; for their ways are false, and the thief comes into the house, while the band of outlaws takes property by force in the streets.

² And they do not say to themselves that I keep in mind all their sin; now their evil acts come round them on every side; they are before my face.

³ In their sin they make a king for themselves, and rulers in their deceit.

⁴ They are all untrue; they are like a burning oven; the bread-maker does not make up the fire from the time when the paste is mixed till it is leavened.

⁵ On the day of our king, the rulers made him ill with the heat of wine; his hand was stretched out with the men of pride.

⁶ For they have made their hearts ready like an oven, while they are waiting secretly; their wrath is sleeping all night; in the morning it is burning like a flaming fire.

⁷ They are all heated like an oven, and they put an end to their judges; all their kings have been made low; not one among them makes prayer to me.

⁸ Ephraim is mixed with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

⁹ Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.

¹⁰ And the pride of Israel gives an answer to his face; but for all this, they have not gone back to the Lord their God, or made search for him.

¹¹ And Ephraim is like a foolish dove, without wisdom; they send out their cry to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

¹² When they go, my net will be stretched out over them; I will take them like the birds of heaven, I will give them punishment, I will take them away in the net for their sin.

¹³ May trouble be theirs! for they have gone far away from me; and destruction, for they have been sinning against me; I was ready to be their saviour, but they said false words against me.

¹⁴ And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.

¹⁵ Though I have given training and strength to their arms, they have evil designs against me.

¹⁶ They have gone to what is of no value; they are like a false bow; their captains will come to destruction by the sword, and their ruler by my wrath; for this, the land of Egypt will make sport of them.

¹ The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, when Ehud was dead.

² Yahweh sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

³ The children of Israel cried to Yahweh: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

⁴ Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time.

⁵ She lived under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.

⁶ She sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said to him, "Hasn't Yahweh, the God of Israel, commanded, 'Go and draw to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?

⁷ I will draw to you, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into your hand.'"

⁸ Barak said to her, "If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go."

⁹ She said, "I will surely go with you: nevertheless, the journey that you take shall not be for your honor; for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

¹⁰ Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali together to Kedesh; and there went up ten thousand men at his feet: and Deborah went up with him.

¹¹ Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab the brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.

¹² They told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam was gone up to Mount Tabor.

¹³ Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth of the Gentiles, to the river Kishon.

¹⁴ Deborah said to Barak, "Go; for this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Hasn't Yahweh gone out before you?" So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.

¹⁵ Yahweh confused Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his army, with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot, and fled away on his feet.

¹⁶ But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the army, to Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; there was not a man left.

¹⁷ However Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

¹⁸ Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, "Turn in, my lord, Turn in to me; don't be afraid." He came in to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.

¹⁹ He said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty." She opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

²⁰ He said to her, "Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man comes and inquires of you, and says, 'Is there any man here?' that you shall say, 'No.'"

²¹ Then Jael Heber's wife took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; so he swooned and died.

²² Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man whom you seek." He came to her; and behold, Sisera lay dead, and the tent peg was in his temples.

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

²⁴ The hand of the children of Israel prevailed more and more against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.