1. After the sacred chest had been in Philistia for seven months,
2. the Philistines called in their priests and fortune-tellers, and asked, “What should we do with this sacred chest? Tell us how to send it back where it belongs!”
3. “Don't send it back without a gift,” the priests and fortune-tellers answered. “Send along something to Israel's God to make up for taking the chest in the first place. Then you will be healed, and you will find out why the Lord was causing you so much trouble.”
4. “What should we send?” the Philistines asked.The priests and fortune-tellers answered:There are five Philistine rulers, and they all have the same disease that you have.
5. So make five gold models of the sores and five gold models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. If you honour the God of Israel with this gift, perhaps he will stop causing trouble for you and your gods and your crops.
6. Don't be like the Egyptians and their king. They were stubborn, but when Israel's God had finished with them, they had to let Israel go.
7. Get a new cart and two cows that have young calves and that have never pulled a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take the calves back to their barn.
8. Then put the chest on the cart. Put the gold rats and sores into a bag and put it on the cart next to the chest. Then send it on its way.
9. Watch to see if the chest goes on up the road to the Israelite town of Beth-Shemesh. If it goes back to its own country, you will know that it was the Lord who made us suffer so badly. But if the chest doesn't go back to its own country, then the Lord had nothing to do with the disease that hit us—it was simply bad luck.
10. The Philistines followed their advice. They hitched up the two cows to the cart, but they kept their calves in a barn.
11. Then they put the chest on the cart, along with the bag that had the gold rats and sores in it.
12. The cows went straight up the road towards Beth-Shemesh, mooing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them until they got close to Beth-Shemesh.
13. The people of Beth-Shemesh were harvesting their wheat in the valley. When they looked up and saw the chest, they were so happy that they stopped working and started celebrating.