1After Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD.
2So the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The captain of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
3The children of Israel cried out to the LORD, for Sisera had nine hundred chariots of iron. For twenty years he cruelly oppressed the children of Israel.
4Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.
5She sat under the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim. The children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
6She sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedeshnaphtali, and said to him, "Has not the LORD God of Israel given this command: 'Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun?"
7"And I will draw Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, to you at the river Kishon, with his chariots and his crowds of men. And I will give him into your hand.'"
8Barak 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."
9She said, "I will certainly go with you. But the journey you are taking will bring you no honour, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.
10Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. Ten thousand men went up behind him, and Deborah went up with him.
11Now Heber the Kenite, who was of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites. He had pitched his tent as far away as the plain of Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.
12They told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to mount Tabor.
13So 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.
14Deborah said to Barak, "Get up. This is the day when the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. Has not the LORD gone out before you?" So Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.
15The LORD threw Sisera into panic, with all his chariots and all his army, before the edge of Barak's sword. Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot.
16But Barak chased after the chariots and after the army, as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles. All the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword, and not a man was left.
17But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.
18Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, "Turn in, my lord, turn in to me. Do not be afraid." So he turned in to her, into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
19He said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty." So she opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.
20Again he said to her, "Stand in the door of the tent. If any man comes and asks you, 'Is there any man here?' then say, 'No.'"
21Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand. She went quietly to him and drove the peg into his temples, so that it went down into the ground, for he was fast asleep and worn out. So he died.
22Look, as Barak was chasing Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man you are looking for." When he came into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead, with the peg in his temples.
23So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.
24The hand of the children of Israel grew stronger and stronger against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.