1 Samuel 6:7–14

⁷Now then, get ready a new cart and two milch cows that have never borne a yoke, and yoke the cows to the cart, but take their calves home, away from them.^{* 8}Take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart, and put in a box at its side the figures of gold that you are sending to him as a guilt offering. Then send it off, and let it go its way.^{* 9}And watch: if it goes up on the way to its own land, to Beth-shemesh, then it is he who has done us this great harm; but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance.”^*

¹⁰The men did so; they took two milch cows and yoked them to the cart and shut up their calves at home. ¹¹They put the ark of the Lord on the cart and the box with the gold mice and the images of their tumors. ¹²The cows went straight in the direction of Beth-shemesh along one highway, lowing as they went; they turned neither to the right nor to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.^*

¹³Now the people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. When they looked up and saw the ark, they went with rejoicing to meet it.^{s 14}The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there. A large stone was there; so they split up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.^*