1 Samuel 6

₁When the covenant box of the Lord had been in the land of the Philistines for 7 months, ₂the Philistines called their priests and fortune-tellers and asked them: ‘What must we do with the covenant box of the Lord? Tell us how we must send it back to its place.’

₃The priests and the fortune-tellers said: ‘When you send back the covenant box of the God of Israel, you must send a gift with it. Send a guilt-offering with the covenant box because you are guilty. Then you will be healed and you will know why He has punished you so much.’

₄The Philistines asked: ‘What guilt-offering must we send Him?’ And the priests and fortune-tellers said: ‘You must send 5 gold sores and 5 gold mice, because there are 5 Philistine leaders and all of them were sick as you were. ₅Make images of the sores and images of the mice that destroyed all the food in the land. Give them to the God of Israel to honour Him. Maybe He will stop punishing you and your gods and your land. ₆Do not be like the Egyptian people and Pharaoh. They were stubborn, but when God made them suffer, they let the Israelites go away. ₇This is what you must do: You must take a new wagon and 2 cows that have calves, cows that have never pulled a wagon before. The cows must pull the wagon but you must keep their calves at home. ₈You must put the guilt-offering of gold gifts in a box and put it onto the wagon next to the covenant box. Then you must send the wagon on its way. ₉You must look where the cows and the wagon go. If they go to the town of Beth-Shemesh in the land of the Lord, then we will know it was God who made us suffer so much. If the wagon does not go to Beth-Shemesh, then we will know it was not the Lord who made us suffer, and it just happened to us by accident.’

₁₀The Philistine men listened to them and they did it. They took 2 cows that had calves. The cows pulled the wagon and they made the calves stay at home. ₁₁They put the covenant box of the Lord onto the wagon, and also the box with the gold mice and the images of the sores. ₁₂The cows went straight on the road to Beth-Shemesh. They stayed on the road and they mooed while they walked. They did not turn left or right and the leaders of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth-Shemesh. ₁₃The people of Beth-Shemesh were busy cutting wheat in the valley. When they saw the covenant box, they were very happy. ₁₄The wagon came to the field of Joshua of Beth-Shemesh and there it stopped next to a big rock. The people of Beth-Shemesh cut up the wooden wagon and they sacrificed the cows to the Lord as a burnt-offering. ₁₅The Levites took the covenant box of the Lord from the wagon and also the box with the gold gifts in it. They put it all on the big rock. The people of Beth-Shemesh sacrificed burnt-offerings and other offerings to the Lord on that day. ₁₆The 5 leaders of the Philistines saw this and they went back to the town of Ekron on the same day. ₁₇The guilt-offering that the Philistines sent to the Lord was 5 gold sores, one sore for each town. The towns were Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. ₁₈The Philistines also sent gold mice, one mouse for each town where the 5 leaders ruled, both the cities with strong walls and the small villages in the land. The big rock on which the Levites put the covenant box of the Lord is still there in the field of Joshua of Beth-Shemesh.

₁₉Because the people of the town of Beth-Shemesh looked at the covenant box of the Lord, the Lord caused 70 of them to die. The people of Beth-Shemesh cried and mourned for a long time because the Lord caused so many of them to die. ₂₀They said: ‘Who can stand before the Lord, before this holy God? Where will the covenant box of the Lord go from here?’

₂₁So they sent messengers to the people of the town of Kiriath-Jearim and said to them: ‘The Philistines have sent back the covenant box of the Lord. You must come and take it back home with you.’