16. Why do you remain among the sheepfolds,listening to the shepherds playing their pipes for their flocks?As for the clans of Reuben – there was intense searching of heart.
17. Gilead stayed put beyond the Jordan River.As for Dan – why did he seek temporary employment in the shipyards?Asher remained on the seacoast,he stayed by his harbors.
18. The men of Zebulun were not concerned about their lives; Naphtali charged on to the battlefields.
19. Kings came, they fought;the kings of Canaan fought,at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo,but they took no silver as plunder.
20. From the sky the stars fought,from their paths in the heavens they fought against Sisera.
21. The Kishon River carried them off;the river confronted them – the Kishon River.Step on the necks of the strong!
22. The horses’ hooves pounded the ground;the stallions galloped madly.
23. ‘Call judgment down on Meroz,’ says the Lord’s angelic messenger;‘Be sure to call judgment down on those who live there,because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle,to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’
24. The most rewarded of women should be Jael,the wife of Heber the Kenite!She should be the most rewarded of women who live in tents.
25. He asked for water,and she gave him milk;in a bowl fit for a king,she served him curds.
26. Her left hand reached for the tent peg,her right hand for the workmen’s hammer.She “hammered” Sisera,she shattered his skull,she smashed his head,she drove the tent peg through his temple.
27. Between her feet he collapsed,he fell limp and was lifeless;between her feet he collapsed and fell limp, in the spot where he collapsed,there he fell limp – violently murdered!
28. Through the window she looked;Sisera’s mother cried out through the lattice:‘Why is his chariot so slow to return?Why are the hoofbeats of his chariot-horses delayed?’
29. The wisest of her ladies answer;indeed she even thinks to herself,