The Ark Returned to Israel 1 UST The people of Philistia kept Yahweh’ s sacred chest in their area for seven months. BSB BSB: When the ark of the LORD had been in the land of the Philistines seven months,
2 UST Then they summoned their priests and their fortunetellers. They asked them,“We want to know how we should treat the sacred chest of Yahweh. Tell us what gift we should send with it back to its own land.” BSB BSB: the Philistines summoned the priests and diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the ark of the LORD? Tell us how to send it back to its place.”
3 UST Those men replied,“Since you are going to return the sacred chest of Israel’ s God, you must send a gift with it to show him that you are sorry for taking it. If you do that and your unhealthy skin growths go away, you will know for sure that it was Israel’ s God who was making you suffer, because you took his sacred chest.” BSB BSB: They replied, “If you return the ark of the God of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means return it to Him with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why His hand has not been lifted from you.”
4 UST The people of Philistia asked,“What kind of gift should we send?” Those men replied,“Since you people and your five rulers have suffered in the same ways, send the same number of gifts as the number of your rulers. Make five gold models of the unhealthy growths on your skin and five gold models of mice. BSB BSB: “What guilt offering should we send back to Him?” asked the Philistines. “Five gold tumors and five gold rats,” they said, “according to the number of rulers of the Philistines, since the same plague has struck both you and your rulers.
5 UST Make models that represent the unhealthy skin growths and the mice that have been devouring your crops. Make them in order to honor the God of the Israelite people. If you do that, perhaps he will stop punishing you, your gods, and your land. BSB BSB: Make images of your tumors and of the rats that are ravaging the land. Give glory to the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land.
6 UST Do not be stubborn as Pharaoh and the Egyptians were. Remember that Yahweh finally made them suffer more than they could bear, and that they then allowed the Israelites to leave their land. BSB BSB: Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened theirs? When He afflicted them, did they not send the people out so they could go on their way?
8 UST Put their God’ s sacred chest on the cart along with the gold models you are sending to him. Put them in a small box alongside the sacred chest. These gold objects will be an offering to acknowledge to the God of the Israelites that he was right to punish you for taking his sacred chest. Then send the cows down the road and let them go wherever they want. BSB BSB: Take the ark of the LORD, set it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to Him as a guilt offering. Then send the ark on its way,
9 UST Then watch the cart as the cows pull it. If they pull it back into the territory of the Israelites, to the town of Beth Shemesh, then we will know that it was their God who caused these terrible plagues to afflict us. But if the cows do not pull the cart there, then we will know that the God of the Israelites has not been punishing us for taking his sacred chest. We will know that it was just a coincidence that we got unhealthy skin growths and mice ate our crops at the same time.” BSB BSB: but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
10 UST So the people did what the priests and diviners told them to do. They got two cows that had just had calves and were nursing them. They hitched them to a new cart that they made. But they put those calves securely in their pens. BSB BSB: So the men did as instructed. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves.
11 UST Then they put Yahweh’ s sacred chest in the cart along with a box containing the gold models they had made of the mice and the skin growths. BSB BSB: Then they put the ark of the LORD on the cart, along with the chest containing the gold rats and the images of the tumors.
12 UST Then the cows started walking, and they went straight down the road that led to Beth Shemesh.{ Even though no one had ever yoked them before,} they did not pull in different directions. They were mooing the whole time{ because they were distressed about their calves,} but they kept going forward down the road. The five rulers of the Philistine cities followed the cows until they reached the outskirts of Beth Shemesh. BSB BSB: And the cows headed straight up the road toward Beth-shemesh, staying on that one highway and lowing as they went, never straying to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed behind them to the border of Beth-shemesh.
13 UST At that time, the people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley outside their city. When the cows came along the road, they looked up and saw the sacred chest on the cart the cows were pulling. They were extremely happy when they saw it. BSB BSB: Now the people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they were overjoyed at the sight.
14 UST The cows pulled the cart into the field of a man whose name was Joshua who lived in Beth Shemesh. They stopped alongside a large rock. Several men from the tribe of Levi lifted from the cart the sacred chest and the box next to it that contained the gold models. They put all those things on the large rock. Then the people smashed the cart and kindled a fire with the wood from it. They slaughtered the cows and burned their bodies on the fire completely as an offering to Yahweh. That day the people of Beth Shemesh offered to Yahweh many sacrifices that they completely burned and many other sacrifices. BSB BSB: The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. The people chopped up the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.
16 UST The five rulers of the Philistines watched the Israelites do these things. Then they returned to Ekron on that same day. BSB BSB: And when the five rulers of the Philistines saw this, they returned to Ekron that same day.
17 UST The Philistines had sent five gold models of skin growths as an offering to Yahweh to acknowledge that he was right to punish them for taking his sacred chest. The five gold models represented the people of their five cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. BSB BSB: As a guilt offering to the LORD, the Philistines had sent back one gold tumor for each city: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.
18 UST The five gold models of mice were gifts from the people of the five cities that the five Philistine leaders rule. This included the people who lived in those cities and those who lived in the surrounding towns, all the way to{ the border between Philistia and Israel that} the large rock{ at Beth Shemesh marked}. People would later give that rock the name Abel. Men from the tribe of Levi placed the sacred chest on top of that rock. It is still there in the field that belonged to the man whose name was Joshua who lived in Beth Shemesh. BSB BSB: The number of gold rats also corresponded to the number of Philistine cities belonging to the five rulers—the fortified cities and their outlying villages. And the large rock on which they placed the ark of the LORD stands to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.
19 UST But some of the people who lived in Beth Shemesh looked into Yahweh’ s sacred chest. Because of that, Yahweh caused 50, 070 of them to die. The others who lived there mourned greatly because Yahweh had killed so many of those people. BSB BSB: But God struck down some of the people of Beth-shemesh because they looked inside the ark of the LORD. He struck down seventy men, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck them with a great slaughter.
20 UST Then the people who lived in Beth Shemesh said,“Since Yahweh is such a holy God, he will eventually kill all of us{ to punish us for being sinful} if his sacred chest remains here! We must send his sacred chest to the people who live in some other place!” BSB BSB: The men of Beth-shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the LORD, this holy God? To whom should the ark go up from here?”
21 UST They sent messengers to the people who lived in the city of Kiriath Jearim. They told them,“The people of Philistia have sent Yahweh’ s sacred chest back to us. Come here and take it to your city.” BSB BSB: So they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up with you.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.