The Ark Returned to Israel

6 When the ark of the Lord had been in Philistine territory seven months, ² the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners^(A) and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the Lord? Tell us how we should send it back to its place.”

³ They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it back to him without a gift;^(B) by all means send a guilt offering^(C) to him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand^(D) has not been lifted from you.”

⁴ The Philistines asked, “What guilt offering should we send to him?”

They replied, “Five gold tumors and five gold rats, according to the number^(E) of the Philistine rulers, because the same plague^(F) has struck both you and your rulers. ⁵ Make models of the tumors^(G) and of the rats that are destroying the country, and give glory^(H) to Israel’s god. Perhaps he will lift his hand from you and your gods and your land. ⁶ Why do you harden^(I) your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them,^(J) did they^(K) not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?

⁷ “Now then, get a new cart^(L) ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked.^(M) Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. ⁸ Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way, ⁹ but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh,^(N) then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us but that it happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰ So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. ¹¹ They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors.

⁵ So David assembled all Israel,^(A) from the Shihor River^(B) in Egypt to Lebo Hamath,^(C) to bring the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim.^{(D) 6} David and all Israel went to Baalah^(E) of Judah (Kiriath Jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord, who is enthroned between the cherubim^(F)—the ark that is called by the Name.

⁷ They moved the ark of God from Abinadab’s^(G) house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. ⁸ David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God, with songs and with harps, lyres, timbrels, cymbals and trumpets.^(H)

⁴ Now David had brought up the ark^(A) of God from Kiriath Jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent^(B) for it in Jerusalem.