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And the ark of Jehovah is in the field of the Philistines seven months,
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and the Philistines call for priests and for diviners, saying, `What do we do to the ark of Jehovah? let us know wherewith we send it to its place?'
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And they say, `If ye are sending away the ark of the God of Israel, ye do not send it away empty; for ye do certainly send back to Him a guilt-offering; then ye are healed, and it hath been known to you why His hand doth not turn aside from you.'
4
And they say, `What [is] the guilt-offering which we send back to Him?' and they say, `The number of the princes of the Philistines -- five golden emerods, and five golden mice -- for one plague [is] to you all, and to your princes,
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and ye have made images of your emerods, and images of your mice that are corrupting the land, and have given honour to the God of Israel; it may be He doth lighten His hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land;
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and why do ye harden your heart as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? do they not -- when He hath rolled Himself upon them -- send them away, and they go?
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`And now, take and make one new cart, and two suckling kine, on which a yoke hath not gone up, and ye have bound the kine in the cart, and caused their young ones to turn back from after them to the house,
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and ye have taken the ark of Jehovah, and put it on the cart, and the vessels of gold which ye have returned to Him -- a guilt-offering -- ye put in a coffer on its side, and have sent it away, and it hath gone;
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and ye have seen, if the way of its own border it goeth up to Beth-Shemesh -- He hath done to us this great evil; and if not, then we have known that His hand hath not come against us; an accident it hath been to us.'
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And the men do so, and take two suckling kine, and bind them in the cart, and their young ones they have shut up in the house;
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and they place the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer, and the golden mice, and the images of their emerods.