5Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your mice that ruin the land, and you shall give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps He will lighten His hand from upon you, your gods, and your land.
6Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When He had worked wonders among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?
7Now therefore, make a new cart, take two milk cows that have never been yoked, and tie the cows to the cart, but bring their calves home away from them.
8And take the ark of the Lord and set it on the cart, and put the jewels of gold, which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering, in a chest by its side and send it away, so that it may go.
9And watch, if it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth Shemesh, then He has done us this great evil; but if not, then we shall know that it was not His hand that struck us, but it happened to us by chance.
10And the men did so; they took two milk cows, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.
11And they set the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the chest with the golden mice and the images of their tumors.
12And the cows took the straight road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines followed them to the border of Beth Shemesh.
13Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
14And the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stood there; there was a large stone, and they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.
15The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it, in which were the jewels of gold, and placed them on the large stone. And the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord on that day.
16When the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
17These are the golden tumors which the Philistines returned as a trespass offering to the Lord: one for Ashdod, one for Gaza, one for Ashkelon, one for Gath, one for Ekron;
18and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and country villages, even to the large stone of Abel, on which they set down the ark of the Lord, which remains to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.
19And He struck the men of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter.
20And the men of Beth Shemesh said, "Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And to whom shall He go up from us?"
21So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath Jearim, saying, "The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord; come down and take it up to you."