The Ark Returned to Israel

1And the ark of Jehovah is in the field of the Philistines seven months, 2and the Philistines call for priests and for diviners, saying, ‘What do we do to the ark of Jehovah? let us know wherewith we send it to its place?’ 3And they say, ‘If ye are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, ye do not send it away empty; for ye do certainly send back to Him a guilt-offering; then ye are healed, and it hath been known to you why His hand doth not turn aside from you.’ 4And they say, ‘What [is] the guilt-offering which we send back to Him?’ and they say, ‘The number of the princes of the Philistines — five golden emerods, and five golden mice — for one plague [is] to you all, and to your princes, 5and ye have made images of your emerods, and images of your mice that are corrupting the land, and have given honour to the God of Israel; it may be He doth lighten His hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land; 6and why do ye harden your heart as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? do they not — when He hath rolled Himself upon them — send them away, and they go? 7‘And now, take and make one new cart, and two suckling kine, on which a yoke hath not gone up, and ye have bound the kine in the cart, and caused their young ones to turn back from after them to the house, 8and ye have taken the ark of Jehovah, and put it on the cart, and the vessels of gold which ye have returned to Him — a guilt-offering — ye put in a coffer on its side, and have sent it away, and it hath gone; 9and ye have seen, if the way of its own border it goeth up to Beth-Shemesh — He hath done to us this great evil; and if not, then we have known that His hand hath not come against us; an accident it hath been to us.’

10And the men do so, and take two suckling kine, and bind them in the cart, and their young ones they have shut up in the house; 11and they place the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer, and the golden mice, and the images of their emerods. 12And the kine go straight in the way, on the way to Beth-Shemesh, in one highway they have gone, going and lowing, and have not turned aside right or left; and the princes of the Philistines are going after them unto the border of Beth-Shemesh.

13And the Beth-Shemeshites are reaping their wheat-harvest in the valley, and they lift up their eyes, and see the ark, and rejoice to see [it]. 14And the cart hath come in unto the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemeshite, and standeth there, and there [is] a great stone, and they cleave the wood of the cart, and the kine they have caused to ascend — a burnt-offering to Jehovah. 15And the Levites have taken down the ark of Jehovah, and the coffer which [is] with it, in which [are] the vessels of gold, and place [them] on the great stone; and the men of Beth-Shemesh have caused to ascend burnt-offerings and sacrifice sacrifices in that day to Jehovah; 16and the five princes of the Philistines have seen [it], and turn back [to] Ekron, on that day.

17And these [are] the golden emerods which the Philistines have sent back — a guilt-offering to Jehovah: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one; 18and the golden mice — the number of all the cities of the Philistines — for the five princes, from the fenced city even unto the hamlet of the villages, even unto the great meadow on which they placed the ark of Jehovah — [are] unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemeshite.

19And He smiteth among the men of Beth-Shemesh, for they looked into the ark of Jehovah, yea, He smiteth among the people seventy men — fifty chief men; and the people mourn, because Jehovah smote among the people — a great smiting. 20And the men of Beth-Shemesh say, ‘Who is able to stand before Jehovah, this holy God? and unto whom doth He go up from us?’ 21And they send messengers unto the inhabitants of Kirjath-Jearim, saying, ‘The Philistines have sent back the ark of Jehovah; come down, take it up unto you.’