1 Samuel 6:7–14

⁷Now therefore, make ^ka new cart, take two milk cows ^lwhich have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart; and take their calves home, away from them. ⁸Then take the ark of the Lord and set it on the cart; and put ^mthe articles of gold which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side. Then send it away, and let it go. ⁹And watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to ⁿBeth Shemesh, then He has done ³us this great evil. But if not, then ^owe shall know that it is not His hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰Then the men did so; they took two milk cows and hitched 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 gold rats and the images of their tumors. ¹²Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the ^phighway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh.

¹³Now the people of Beth Shemesh were reaping their ^qwheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. ¹⁴Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, and stood there; a large stone was there. So they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.