1 Samuel 6:3-12

Legacy Standard Bible

³ So they said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, ^(A)do not send it empty; but you shall surely ^(B)return to Him a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why His hand is not turned away from you.” ⁴ Then they said, “What shall be the guilt offering which we shall return to Him?” And they said, “Five golden ^(C)tumors and five golden mice ^(D)according to the number of the lords of the Philistines, for one plague was on all of ^[a]you and on your lords. ⁵ So you shall make likenesses of your tumors and likenesses of your mice that bring the land to ruin, and ^(E)you shall give glory to the God of Israel; perhaps ^(F)He will ease His hand from you, ^(G)your gods, and your land. ⁶ Why then do you ^[b]harden your hearts ^(H)as the Egyptians and Pharaoh ^[c]hardened their hearts? When He had abused them, ^(I)did they not allow ^[d]the people to go, and they went? ⁷ So now, take and ^(J)make a new cart and two milch cows on which there ^(K)has never been a yoke; and hitch the cows to the cart and take their calves home, away from them. ⁸ And take the ark of Yahweh and place it on the cart; and put ^(L)the articles of gold which you return to Him as ^(M)a guilt offering in a box by its side. Then send it away that it may go. ⁹ See, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to ^(N)Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then ^(O)we will know that it was not His hand that smote us; it happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰ Then the men did so and took two milch cows and hitched them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. ¹¹ And they put the ark of Yahweh on the cart, as well as the box with the golden mice and the likenesses of their tumors. ¹² And the cows took the straight way in the ^[e]direction of ^(P)Beth-shemesh; they went along ^(Q)the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth-shemesh.