1The ark of Yahweh was in the country of the Philistines for seven months.
2And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of Yahweh? Let us know how we should send it back to its place.”
3And they said, “If you are sending back the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means 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?” And they said, “According to the number of the lords of the Philistines: five golden tumors and five golden mice, for one plague was on them all and on your lords.
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 should you harden your heart as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Was it not when he had dealt harshly with them that they sent them off, and they went?
7Now then, take and make one new cart, and two milk cows on which no yoke has come, and hitch the cows to the cart, and take their calves back home away from them.
8Then take the ark of Yahweh and set it on the cart, and the articles of gold that you are returning to him as a guilt offering put in a box beside it, and send it off, and let it go.
9And watch: if it goes up by the way of its own border, toward Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great evil; but if not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us — it happened to us by chance.”
10And the men did so: they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.
11And they set the ark of Yahweh on the cart, along with the box, the golden mice, and the images of their tumors.
12And the cows went straight along the way, on the road to Beth-shemesh; on the one highway they went, lowing as they went, and they did not turn aside to the right or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines went behind them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
13Now 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 into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite and stopped there. A great stone was there, and they split up the wood of the cart and offered 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 articles of gold, and set them on the great stone. And the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed sacrifices that day to Yahweh.
16And the five lords of the Philistines saw it, and they returned to Ekron that same day.
17These are the golden tumors that the Philistines returned as a guilt offering to Yahweh: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;
18and the golden mice according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, from the fortified city to the village of the open country, as far as the great Abel on which they set down the ark of Yahweh — it remains to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite.
19And he struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of Yahweh; he struck down among the people seventy men — fifty thousand men. And the people mourned, because Yahweh had struck the people with a great blow.
20And the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before Yahweh, this holy God? And to whom will he go up away from us?”
21So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of Yahweh. Come down and take it up to yourselves.”
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