1 Samuel 6

6 ¹The ark of our Father stayed in Philistine territory for seven months. ²The Philistines called the priests and fortune-tellers: "What should we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how to send it back to its place."

³They said, "If you send back the ark of Israel's God, don't send it empty, but by all means return him a guilt offering. Then you'll be healed and know why his hand hasn't turned from you."

⁴"What guilt offering should we return to him?" they asked. They replied, "Five gold tumors and five gold mice, matching the number of the Philistine rulers, since the same plague struck you all and your rulers."

⁵"Make images of your tumors and of the mice ravaging the land; give glory to Israel's God. Maybe he'll lift his hand from you, your gods, and your land. ⁶Why harden your hearts like Egypt and Pharaoh did? Didn't they, after he dealt harshly with them, finally let the people go on their way?"

⁷"Now get a new cart and two nursing cows never yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away from them and pen them up. ⁸Take the LORD's ark, put it on the cart, and place in a box beside it the gold objects you're returning to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off. ⁹Watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth-shemesh, he brought this great disaster on us. If not, we'll know his hand didn't strike us—it was chance."

¹⁰The men did so: took two nursing cows, tied them to the cart, penned their calves at home. ¹¹They put the ark of our Father and the box holding gold mice and images of their tumors on the cart. ¹²The cows went straight toward Beth-shemesh, staying on one road, mooing, turning neither right nor left. Philistine rulers followed them to Beth-shemesh's border. ¹³Beth-shemesh people, harvesting wheat in the valley, looked up, saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. ¹⁴The cart reached Joshua's field at Beth-shemesh and stopped beside a large stone. They split the cart's wood and offered the cows as a burnt offering to our Father. ¹⁵The Levites took down our Father's ark and the box beside it holding the gold objects, setting them on the large stone. That day Beth-shemesh's people offered burnt offerings and sacrifices to our Father. ¹⁶The five rulers of the Philistines saw all this and returned to Ekron that same day. ¹⁷Gold tumors the Philistines returned to our Father as a guilt offering: one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. ¹⁸The gold mice numbered all the Philistine towns of the five rulers—fortified towns and open villages alike. The large stone where they set the ark of our Father stands as a witness today in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh. ¹⁹But our Father struck down some men of Beth-shemesh for looking into the ark of the covenant, killing seventy of them. The people mourned because he had struck them with so great a blow. ²⁰The men of Beth-shemesh said, "Who can stand before our Father, this holy God? And to whom will the ark go up away from us?"

²¹They sent messengers to Kiriath-jearim's people: "The Philistines returned our Father's ark. Come down, bring it up to you."