7. So now set to work and make a new cart. Then take two milk cows that have not borne the yoke; hitch them to the cart, but drive their calves indoors away from them.
8. You shall next take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart, putting the golden articles that you are offering as reparation for your guilt in a box beside it. Start it on its way, and let it go.
9. Then watch! If it goes up to Beth-shemesh along the route to the Lord’s territory, then it was the Lord who brought this great calamity upon us; if not, we will know that it was not the Lord’s hand, but a bad turn, that struck us.”
10. They acted upon this advice. Taking two milk cows, they hitched them to the cart but shut up their calves indoors.
11. Then they placed the ark of the Lord on the cart, along with the box containing the golden mice and the images of the tumors.
12. The cows went straight for the route to Beth-shemesh and continued along this road, mooing as they went, turning neither right nor left. The Philistine leaders followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
13. The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting the wheat in the valley. They looked up and rejoiced when they saw the ark.
14. The cart came to the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite and stopped there. At a large stone in the field, the wood of the cart was split up and the cows were offered as a burnt offering to the Lord.