16. When the five rulers of the Philistines saw what had happened, they went back to Ekron that same day.
17. That is how the Philistines sent gifts to the Lord to make up for taking the sacred chest. They sent five gold sores, one each for their towns of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.
18. They also sent one gold rat for each walled town and for every village that the five Philistine rulers controlled. The huge stone where the Levites set the chest is still there in Joshua's field as a reminder of what happened.
19. Some of the men of Beth-Shemesh looked inside the sacred chest, and the Lord God killed seventy of them. This made the people of Beth-Shemesh very sad,
20. and they started saying, “No other God is like the Lord! Who can go near him and still live? We'll have to send the chest away from here. But where can we send it?”
21. They sent messengers to tell the people of Kiriath-Jearim, “The Philistines have sent back the sacred chest. Why don't you take it and keep it there with you?”