1 Samuel 6:9-19

⁹but 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.”

¹⁰So the men did as instructed. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves.

¹¹Then they put the ark of the LORD on the cart, along with the chest containing the gold rats and the images of the tumors.

¹²And 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.

¹³Now 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.

¹⁴The 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.

¹⁵And the Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the chest containing the gold objects, and they placed them on the large rock. That day the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD.

¹⁶And when the five rulers of the Philistines saw this, they returned to Ekron that same day.

¹⁷As a guilt offering to the LORD, the Philistines had sent back one gold tumor for each city: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

¹⁸The 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.

¹⁹But 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.

— 1 Samuel 6:9-19

(BSB)

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Cross References for 1 Samuel 6:9-19

• Numbers 4:20
• Exodus 19:21
• 1 Samuel 6:4
• Numbers 4:15
• 2 Samuel 6:7
• 1 Samuel 5:10
• 2 Samuel 24:22
• Joshua 13:3
• 2 Samuel 1:20
• Colossians 2:18

Cross References Provided by Open Bible

The Berean Standard Bible

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