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¹ And the ark of Jehovah is in the field of the Philistines seven months,² and 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?'<sup>3</sup> And 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.'⁴ And 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,⁵ and 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;⁶ and 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,⁸ and 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;⁹ and 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.'

¹⁰ And 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;¹¹ and they place the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer, and the golden mice, and the images of their emerods.¹² And 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.¹³ And 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].¹⁴ And 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.¹⁵ And 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;¹⁶ and the five princes of the Philistines have seen [it], and turn back [to] Ekron, on that day.¹⁷ And 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;¹⁸ and 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.

¹⁹ And 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.²⁰ And 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?'<sup>21</sup> And 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.'