1 Samuel 6

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

³ They said, "If you send back the ark of Israel's God, don't send it empty; 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. "Five gold tumors and five gold mice, matching the Philistine rulers, since one 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 ease his hand from you, your gods, and your land. ⁶ Why harden your hearts like Egypt and Pharaoh did? Didn't they, after harsh treatment, send the people away, and they left?

⁷ Now get a new cart and two nursing cows never yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but keep their calves shut away at home. ⁸ Take 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, ⁹ Watch: 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.

¹⁰ The men did so: took two nursing cows, tied them to the cart, penned their calves at home. ¹¹ They put the ark of our Father and the box holding gold mice and images of their tumors on the cart. ¹² The 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. ¹³ Beth-shemesh people, harvesting wheat in the valley, looked up, saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. ¹⁴ The 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. ¹⁵ The 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. ¹⁶ The five rulers of the Philistines saw all this and returned to Ekron that same day. ¹⁷ Gold tumors the Philistines returned to our Father as a guilt offering: one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. ¹⁸ The 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. ¹⁹ But 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. ²⁰ The men of Beth-shemesh said, "Who can stand before our Father, this holy God, and to whom will he go up from us?"

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