11. They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart. They put the chest there along with it. The chest held the gold models of the rats and of the growths.
12. Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh. They stayed on the road. They were mooing all the way. They didn't turn to the right or the left. The Philistine rulers followed them all the way to the border of Beth Shemesh.
13. The people of Beth Shemesh were working in the valley. They were gathering their wheat crop. They looked up and saw the ark. When they saw it, they were filled with joy.
14. The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh. It stopped there beside a large rock. The people chopped up the wood the cart was made out of. They sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.
15. Some Levites had taken the ark of the Lord off the cart. They had also taken off the chest that held the gold models. They placed them on the large rock. On that day the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings to the Lord. They also made sacrifices to him.
16. The five Philistine rulers saw everything that happened. On that same day they returned to Ekron.
17. The Philistines sent gold models of growths as a guilt offering to the Lord. There was one each for Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron.
18. They also sent five gold models of rats. There was one for each of the Philistine towns that belonged to the five rulers. Each of those towns had high walls around it. The towns also had country villages around them. The Levites set the ark of the Lord on a large rock. To this very day the rock gives witness to what happened there. It's in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh.
19. But some of the people of Beth Shemesh looked into the ark of the Lord. So he struck them down. He put 70 of them to death. The rest of the people were filled with sorrow. That's because the Lord had killed so many of them.
20. The people of Beth Shemesh said, "The Lord is a holy God. Who can stand in front of him? Where can the ark go up to from here?"