1 Samuel 6:7-12

Christian Standard Bible Anglicised

⁷ ‘Now then, prepare one new cart and two milk cows that have never been yoked.^(A) Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. ⁸ Take the ark of the Lord, place it on the cart, and put the gold objects that you’re sending him as a guilt offering in a box^(B) beside the ark.^(C) Send it off and let it go its way. ⁹ Then watch: If it goes up the road to its homeland towards Beth-shemesh,^(D) it is the Lord who has made this terrible trouble for us. However, if it doesn’t, we will know that it was not his hand that punished^(E) us – it was only something that happened to us by chance.’

¹⁰ The men did this: They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and confined their calves in the pen. ¹¹ Then they put the ark of the Lord on the cart, along with the box containing the gold mice and the images of their tumours. ¹² The cows went straight up the road to Beth-shemesh.^(F) They stayed on that one road,^(G) lowing as they went; they never strayed to the right or to the left. The Philistine rulers were walking behind them to the territory of Beth-shemesh.