1. Now the ark of Yahweh had been in the territory of the Philistines for seven months,
2. and the Philistines called to the priests and to those who practiced divination, saying, “What should we do with the ark of Yahweh? Inform us how we should send it to its place.”
3. They said, “If you are sending the ark of the God of Israel away, you must not send it away empty, but by all means return it with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed and it will become known to you why his hand is not turned aside from you.”
4. And they said, “What is the guilt offering that we should return to him?” They said, “The number of the rulers of the Philistines is five. Therefore send five gold tumors and five gold mice, because one plague was on all of you and all your rulers.
5. You must make images of your tumors and images of your mice that are ravaging the land, and you must give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand on you and on your gods and on your land.
6. Why should you harden your hearts like the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? Is it not just like when he dealt with them wantonly so that they sent them away and they left?
7. So then, prepare one new utility cart and two milking cows that have never had a yoke on them, and you must harness the cows to the utility cart and then turn their calves from following them to their stall.
8. And you must take the ark of Yahweh and place it on the utility cart with the gold objects that you are returning to him as a guilt offering. You must place them in the container beside the ark and then send it off so that it goes away.
9. You must watch; if it goes up by the way of its territory to Beth Shemesh, he has caused this great disaster to come on us. But if not, then we will know his hand has not struck us; it was by chance that this happened to us.
10. So the men did so; they took two milking cows and harnessed them to the utility cart, but they shut up their calves in the stall.
11. Then they put the ark of Yahweh on the utility cart with the container holding the gold mice and the images of their tumors.