1 Samuel 6:7-15

7Now get a new cart ready for two dairy cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart. Take their calves away, and leave them in their stall.

8Take the ark of the Lord, and put it on the cart. Put the gold objects which you’re giving him as a guilt offering in a box beside the ark. Send the cart on its way,

9but then watch where it goes. If it goes up the road to its own country toward Beth Shemesh, then this disaster is the Lord’s doing. But if not, we’ll know it wasn’t his hand that struck us, but what happened to us was an accident.”

10The people did this. They took two dairy cows, hitched them to a cart, and shut the calves in the stall.

11They put the ark of the Lord and the box containing the gold mice and the models of their hemorrhoids on the cart.

12The cows went straight up the road to Beth Shemesh. Continually mooing, they stayed on the road and didn’t turn right or left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them to the border of Beth Shemesh.

13The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. When they looked up and saw the ark, they were overjoyed.

14The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and stopped there by a large rock. The people chopped up the wood of the cart and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord.

15(The Levites had already taken down ⌞from the cart⌟ the ark of the Lord and the box which contained the gold objects and put them on the large rock.) The people of Beth Shemesh presented burnt offerings and sacrifices to the Lord that day.