⁷ Now therefore, make ^(A)a new cart, take two milk cows ^(B)which have never been yoked, and hitch the cows to the cart; and take their calves home, away from them. ⁸ Then take the ark of the Lord and set it on the cart; and put ^(C)the articles of gold which you are returning to Him as a trespass offering in a chest by its side. Then send it away, and let it go. ⁹ And watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to ^(D)Beth Shemesh, then He has done ^[a]us this great evil. But if not, then ^(E)we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us—it happened to us by chance.”

¹⁰ Then the men did so; they took two milk cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home. ¹¹ And they set the ark of the Lord on the cart, and the chest with the gold rats and the images of their tumors. ¹² Then the cows headed straight for the road to Beth Shemesh, and went along the ^(F)highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn aside to the right hand or the left. And the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth Shemesh.