1 Samuel 6

¹And the ark of the Lord was in the field of the Philistines seven months.

²And the Philistines called to the priests and to the diviners, saying, 'What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us with what we should send it away to its place.'

³And they said, 'If you are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty-handed, but you must surely return to him a guilt offering; then you shall be healed, and it shall be made known to you all why his hand has not turned aside from you all.'

⁴And they said, What is the guilt offering that we shall return to him? And they said, According to the number of the lords of the Philistines: five golden tumors and five golden mice, for one plague was upon all of them and upon your lords.

⁵And you shall make images of the tumors of you all and images of the mice of you all that are ruining the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you all and from upon the gods of you all and from upon the land of you all.

⁶And why would you harden your hearts as Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Was it not when he dealt harshly with them that they sent them away and they went?

⁷And now take and make a new cart, one, and two milch cows upon which a yoke has never come; and you shall yoke the cows to the cart and bring their young back from behind them homeward.

⁸And take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart, and the gold articles that you shall return to him as a guilt offering place in a chest beside it, and send it off so it may go.

⁹And you shall watch: if it goes up the way of its own territory to Beth-shemesh, it is he who has done this great bad thing to us; but if not, then we shall know that it was not his hand that struck us — it happened to us by chance.

¹⁰And the men did so, and they took two milch cows and yoked them to the cart, and their young they shut up in the house.

¹¹And they placed the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the chest, and the golden mice, and the images of their tumors.

¹²And the cows went straight along the road, on the road to Beth-shemesh, on one highway they went, going and lowing; and they did not turn aside right or left, and the lords of the Philistines were going after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

¹³And the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping the wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and they rejoiced to see it.

¹⁴And the cart came to the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and it stood there; and there was a great stone, and they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.

¹⁵And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it, in which the gold articles were, and placed them on the great stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices to the Lord that day.

¹⁶And the five lords of the Philistines saw, and they returned to Ekron on that day.

¹⁷And these are the golden tumors that the Philistines returned as a guilt offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron.

¹⁸And the gold mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, from walled city to open village, and as far as Abel the great, upon which they set the ark of the LORD — until this day, in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.

¹⁹And he struck among the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; and he struck among the people seventy men, fifty thousand men. And the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people a great blow.

²⁰And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall it go up from us?

²¹And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, 'The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and bring it up to you.'