1 Samuel 6
6
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 guiltoffering 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.’
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1 Samuel 6: YLT98
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maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society
1 Samuel 6
6
The Return of the Covenant Box
1After the LORD's Covenant Box had been in Philistia for seven months, 2the people called the priests and the magicians and asked, “What shall we do with the Covenant Box of the LORD? If we send it back where it belongs, what shall we send with it?”
3They answered, “If you return the Covenant Box of the God of Israel, you must, of course, send with it a gift to him to pay for your sin. The Covenant Box must not go back without a gift. In this way you will be healed, and you will find out why he has kept on punishing you.”
4“What gift shall we send him?” the people asked.
They answered, “Five gold models of tumours and five gold mice, one of each for each Philistine king. The same plague was sent on all of you and on the five kings. 5You must make these models of the tumours and of the mice that are ravaging your country, and you must give honour to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will stop punishing you, your gods, and your land. 6Why should you be stubborn, as the king of Egypt and the Egyptians were? Don't forget how God made fools of them until they let the Israelites leave Egypt. 7So prepare a new wagon and two cows that have never been yoked; hitch them to the wagon and drive their calves back to the barn. 8Take the LORD's Covenant Box, put it on the wagon, and place in a box beside it the gold models that you are sending to him as a gift to pay for your sins. Start the wagon on its way and let it go by itself. 9Then watch it go; if it goes towards the town of Beth Shemesh, this means that it is the God of the Israelites who has sent this terrible disaster on us. But if it doesn't, then we will know that he did not send the plague; it was only a matter of chance.”
10They did what they were told: they took two cows and hitched them to the wagon, and shut the calves in the barn. 11They put the Covenant Box in the wagon, together with the box containing the gold models of the mice and of the tumours. 12The cows started off on the road to Beth Shemesh and headed straight towards it, without turning off the road. They were mooing as they went. The five Philistine kings followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
13The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, when suddenly they looked up and saw the Covenant Box. They were overjoyed at the sight. 14The wagon came to a field belonging to a man named Joshua, who lived in Beth Shemesh, and it stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the wooden wagon and killed the cows and offered them as a burnt sacrifice to the LORD. 15The Levites lifted off the Covenant Box of the LORD and the box with the gold models in it, and placed them on the large rock. Then the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt sacrifices and other sacrifices to the LORD. 16The five Philistine kings watched them do this and then went back to Ekron that same day.
17The Philistines sent the five gold tumours to the LORD as a gift to pay for their sins, one each for the cities of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 18They also sent gold mice, one for each of the cities ruled by the five Philistine kings, both the fortified towns and the villages without walls. The large rock in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, on which they placed the LORD's Covenant Box, is still there as a witness to what happened.
19The LORD killed seventy of the men of Beth Shemesh because they looked inside the Covenant Box. And the people mourned because the LORD had caused such a great slaughter among them.
The Covenant Box at Kiriath Jearim
20So the men of Beth Shemesh said, “Who can stand before the LORD, this holy God? Where can we send him to get him away from us?” 21They sent messengers to the people of Kiriath Jearim to say, “The Philistines have returned the LORD's Covenant Box. Come down and fetch it.”
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Good News Bible. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.