1 SamuelChapter 6

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¹The ark of the LORD had been in Philistine land for seven months. ²Then the Philistines called for their priests and the men who used magic to learn secrets. They said, "What should we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how to send it back to its place." ³They answered, "If you send back the ark of the God of Israel, don't send it away empty. Be sure to send a guilt offering back with it to him. Then you will be healed. And you will learn why his hand has not left you alone." ⁴The Philistines asked, "What guilt offering should we send to him?" They answered, "Send five gold tumors and five gold rats. That is one for each of the Philistine rulers. You need them because the same plague has struck you and your rulers. ⁵Make models of your tumors and of the rats that are destroying the land. Give glory to the God of Israel. Maybe he will lift his hand off you and your gods and your land. ⁶Why make your hearts stubborn like the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When God dealt harshly with them, didn't they let the people go on their way? ⁷So now, get one new cart ready. Get two cows that are nursing calves and have never worn a yoke. Hitch the cows to the cart. But take their calves away from them and pen them up. ⁸Take the ark of the LORD and put it on the cart. Put the gold objects in a box beside it. They are the guilt offering you are sending back to him. Then send the ark on its way. ⁹But keep watching it. It may go up the road to its own land, toward Beth-shemesh. If it does, then the LORD is the one who brought this terrible trouble on us. But if it doesn't, then we will know his hand did not strike us. It just happened by chance." ¹⁰So the men did what they were told. They took two cows that were nursing calves. They hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. ¹¹They put the ark of the LORD on the cart. They also put on the box with the gold rats and the models of the tumors. ¹²Then the cows went straight up the road toward Beth-shemesh. They stayed on that one main road, mooing as they went. They never turned to the right or to the left. The Philistine rulers followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh. ¹³The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. They looked up and saw the ark. They were filled with joy when they saw it. ¹⁴The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh. It stopped there beside a large rock. The people chopped up the wood of the cart. They offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. ¹⁵The Levites lifted down the ark of the LORD. They also took down the box with the gold objects. They set them on the large rock. That day the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD. ¹⁶The five Philistine rulers watched all this. Then they went back to Ekron that same day. ¹⁷The Philistines sent back gold tumors as a guilt offering to the LORD. They sent one for each city: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. ¹⁸The number of gold rats matched the number of Philistine towns that belonged to the five rulers. That included the walled cities and the villages around them. The large rock where they set the ark of the LORD is still there today. It is in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh. ¹⁹But God struck down some of the people of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked inside the ark of the LORD. He struck down seventy men. The people mourned because the LORD had struck them so hard.a ²⁰The men of Beth-shemesh asked, "Who can stand in front of the LORD, this holy God? Where can the ark go from here?" ²¹So they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-jearim. They said, "The Philistines have sent back the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to your town."