Judges 4; Judges 5; Judges 6

1 After Ehud had died, the Israelites again did things that the LORD saw as evil.

2 So the LORD gave them over to King Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, and he was stationed in Harosheth-ha-goiim.

3 The Israelites cried out to the LORD because Sisera had nine hundred iron chariots and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly for twenty years.

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

5 She would sit under Deborah's palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the Ephraim highlands, and the Israelites would come to her to settle disputes.

6 She sent word to Barak, Abinoam's son, from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, "Hasn't the LORD, Israel's God, issued you a command? ‘Go and assemble at Mount Tabor, taking ten thousand men from the people of Naphtali and Zebulun with you.

7 I'll lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, to assemble with his chariots and troops against you at the Kishon River, and then I'll help you overpower him.'"

8 Barak replied to her, "If you'll go with me, I'll go; but if not, I won't go."

9 Deborah answered, "I'll definitely go with you. However, the path you're taking won't bring honor to you, because the LORD will hand over Sisera to a woman." Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.

10 He summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, and ten thousand men marched out behind him. Deborah marched out with him too.

11 Now Heber the Kenite had moved away from the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses' father-in-law, and had settled as far away as Elon-bezaanannim, which is near Kedesh.

12 When it was reported to Sisera that Barak, Abinoam's son, had marched up to Mount Tabor,

13 Sisera summoned all of his nine hundred iron chariots and all of the soldiers who were with him from Harosheth-ha-goiim to the Kishon River.

14 Then Deborah said to Barak, "Get up! This is the day that the LORD has handed Sisera over to you. Hasn't the LORD gone out before you?" So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men behind him.

15 The LORD threw Sisera and all the chariots and army into a panic before Barak; Sisera himself got down from his chariot and fled on foot.

16 Barak pursued the chariots and the army all the way back to Harosheth-ha-goiim, killing Sisera's entire army with the sword. No one survived.

17 Meanwhile, Sisera had fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was peace between Hazor's King Jabin and the family of Heber the Kenite.

18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, "Come in, sir, come in here. Don't be afraid." So he went with her into the tent, and she hid him under a blanket.

19 Sisera said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink. I'm thirsty." So she opened a jug of milk, gave him a drink, and hid him again.

20 Then he said to her, "Stand at the entrance to the tent. That way, if someone comes and asks you, ‘Is there a man here?' you can say, ‘No.'"

21 But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent stake and a hammer. While Sisera was sound asleep from exhaustion, she tiptoed to him. She drove the stake through his head and down into the ground, and he died.

22 Just then, Barak arrived after chasing Sisera. Jael went out to meet him and said, "Come and I'll show you the man you're after." So he went in with her, and there was Sisera, lying dead, with the stake through his head.

23 So on that day God brought down Canaan's King Jabin before the Israelites.

24 And the power of the Israelites grew greater and greater over Canaan's King Jabin until they defeated him completely.

1 At that time, Deborah and Barak, Abinoam's son, sang:

2 When hair is long in Israel, when people willingly offer themselves—bless the LORD!

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, Deborah, arose, until you arose as a mother in Israel.

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!

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, who walk along the road: tell of it.

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.

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 against warriors.

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.

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 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. And the land was peaceful for forty years.

1 The Israelites did things that the LORD saw as evil, and the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years.

2 The power of the Midianites prevailed over Israel, and because of the Midianites, the Israelites used crevices and caves in the mountains as hidden strongholds.

3 Whenever the Israelites planted seeds, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other easterners would invade.

4 They would set up camp against the Israelites and destroy the land's crops as far as Gaza, leaving nothing to keep Israel alive, not even sheep, oxen, or donkeys.

5 They would invade with their herds and tents, coming like a swarm of locusts, so that no one could count them or their camels. They came into the land to destroy it.

6 So Israel became very weak on account of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the LORD.

7 This time when the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian,

8 the LORD sent them a prophet, who said to them, "The LORD, Israel's God, proclaims: I myself brought you up from Egypt, and I led you out of the house of slavery.

9 I delivered you from the power of the Egyptians and from the power of all your oppressors. I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

10 I told you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.' But you have not obeyed me."

11 Then the LORD's messenger came and sat under the oak at Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

12 The LORD's messenger appeared to him and said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior!"

13 But Gideon replied to him, "With all due respect, my Lord, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn't the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us."

14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, "You have strength, so go and rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not personally sending you?"

15 But again Gideon said to him, "With all due respect, my Lord, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I'm the youngest in my household."

16 The LORD replied, "Because I'm with you, you'll defeat the Midianites as if they were just one person."

17 Then Gideon said to him, "If I've gained your approval, please show me a sign that it's really you speaking with me.

18 Don't leave here until I return, bring out my offering, and set it in front of you." The Lord replied, "I'll stay until you return."

19 So Gideon went and prepared a young goat and used an ephah of flour for unleavened bread. He put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them.

20 Then God's messenger said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread and set them on this rock, then pour out the broth." And he did so.

21 The LORD's messenger reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire came up from the rock and devoured the meat and the unleavened bread; and the LORD's messenger vanished before his eyes.

22 Then Gideon realized that it had been the LORD's messenger. Gideon exclaimed, "Oh no, LORD God! I have seen the LORD's messenger face-to-face!"

23 But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Don't be afraid! You won't die."

24 So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it "The LORD makes peace." It still stands today in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

25 That night the LORD said to him, "Take your father's bull and a second bull seven years old. Break down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah that is beside it.

26 Build an altar to the LORD your God in the proper way on top of this high ground. Then take the second bull and offer it as an entirely burned offering with the wood of the Asherah that you cut down."

27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did just as the LORD had told him. But because he was too afraid of his household and the townspeople to do it during the day, he did it at night.

28 When the townspeople got up early in the morning, there was the altar to Baal broken down, with the asherah image that had been beside it cut down, and the second bull offered on the newly built altar!

29 They asked each other, "Who did this?" They searched and investigated, and finally they concluded, "Gideon, Joash's son, did this!"

30 The townspeople said to Joash, "Bring out your son for execution because he tore down the altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah that was beside it."

31 But Joash replied to all who were lined up against him, "Will you make Baal's complaint for him? Will you come to his rescue? Anyone who argues for him will be killed before morning. If he is a god, let him argue for himself, because it was his altar that was torn down."

32 So on that day Gideon became known as Jerubbaal, meaning, "Let Baal argue with him," because he tore down his altar.

33 Some time later, all the Midianites, Amalekites, and other easterners joined together, came over, and set up camp in the Jezreel Valley.

34 Then the LORD's spirit came over Gideon, and he sounded the horn and summoned the Abiezrites to follow him.

35 He sent messengers into all of Manasseh, and they were also summoned to follow him. Then he sent messengers into Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali too, and they marched up to meet them.

36 But then Gideon said to God, "To see if you really intend to rescue Israel through me as you have declared,

37 I'm now putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece but all the ground is dry, then I'll know that you are going to rescue Israel through me, as you have declared."

38 And that is what happened. When he got up early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung out enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water.

39 Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be angry with me, but let me speak just one more time. Please let me make just one more test with the fleece: now let only the fleece be dry and let dew be on all the ground."

40 And God did so that night. Only the fleece was dry, but there was dew on all the ground.