1 Samuel 6

1And the ark of Yahweh was in the territory of the Philistines seven months.

2So the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of Yahweh? Tell us with what we should send it to its place.”

3And they said, “If you are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, for you must surely return to him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be made known to you why his hand has not turned away from you.”

4And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we should return to him?” They said, “According to the number of the Philistine rulers: five golden tumors and five golden mice, for one plague was on all of them and on your rulers.”

5So make images of your tumors and images of your mice that are ravaging the land, and give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you, and from upon your gods, and from upon your land.

6Why then do you harden your hearts, as Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? Was it not when he dealt harshly with them that they sent them away, and they went?

7Now then, take and make one new cart, and two nursing cows on which no yoke has come, and hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away from them to the house.

8Then take the ark of Yahweh and place it on the cart, and put the gold objects that you are returning to him as a guilt offering in a box beside it. Then send it away, and let it go.

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

10So the men did so: they took two milk cows and harnessed them to the cart, and shut up their calves in the house.

11Then they put the ark of Yahweh on the cart, along with the box and the gold mice and the images of their tumors.

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

13The 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.

14The cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stopped there, where there was a large stone. Then they split up the wood of the cart and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to Yahweh.

15And the Levites took down the ark of Yahweh, and the box that was with it, in which were the gold objects, and set them on the great stone. And the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices on that day to Yahweh.

16When the five rulers of the Philistines saw it, they returned to Ekron that same day.

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

18and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five rulers, from fortified city to unwalled village, and as far as the great stone on which they set down the ark of Yahweh, which remains to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.

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

20Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up from us?”

21So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of Yahweh. Come down; bring it up to yourselves.”