Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This is a psalm that Asaph wrote.

God and the gods^[a]

The Philistines give back God's Covenant Box

6 The Philistines had the Lord's Covenant Box in their country for seven months. ² Then they called their priests and their magicians to meet with them. The people asked them, ‘What must we do with the Lord's Covenant Box? Tell us how we should send it back to its home.’

³ The priests and magicians answered, ‘Send the Covenant Box of Israel's God back with a special offering. You must not send it back without anything. Send an offering so that their God will forgive you. Then you will get well again. You will understand why he has continued to punish you.’

⁴ The people asked, ‘What offering should we send to their God, so that he will forgive us?’

The priests and magicians replied, ‘You must send gold images of five tumours and five mice.^[a] You must make five images of each one because the Philistines have five rulers. They have the same disease that all of you have. ⁵ Make images of the tumours and the mice that are destroying everything in the country. Do that to give honour to the God of Israel. Maybe then he will stop punishing you, your gods and your land. ⁶ Do not be like the Egyptians and Pharaoh, their king. They did not agree to obey God. So God punished them a lot until they let the Israelites leave Egypt.

⁷ You must make a new cart. Find two cows that have just given birth to calves. It must be the first time that those cows have pulled a cart. Tie them to the cart with ropes so that they can pull it. Then take their calves away from them. ⁸ Put the Lord's Covenant Box on the cart. Put another box on the cart with the gold images inside it. Those are your offerings to their God so that he will forgive you. Then send the cart away. ⁹ But continue to watch it carefully. The cows may pull it across our border to Beth Shemesh in Israel. If that happens, we will know that the God of Israel has punished us with this great trouble. But if the cart goes somewhere else, we will know that it was not their God who did this to us. We will know that our disease happened only by chance.’

¹⁰ So the Philistines did what the priests and magicians told them. They took two cows that had just given birth to calves. They tied the cows to a cart. They took away their calves and they kept them at home. ¹¹ They put the Lord's Covenant Box on the cart. They put the other box beside it on the cart. That box contained the gold images of the mice and the tumours. ¹² The cows pulled the cart straight along the road towards Beth Shemesh. They did not turn off the road at all, to the left side or the right side. As they went, they made a lot of noise. The Philistine rulers walked behind the cart all the way, as far as the edge of Beth Shemesh.

¹³ The people who lived in Beth Shemesh were working in their fields in the valley. They were cutting their wheat at harvest time.^[b] They looked up and they saw the Lord's Covenant Box. It made them very happy. ^14-15 The cows pulled the cart into a field. It belonged to Joshua, who lived in Beth Shemesh. The cows stopped next to a large rock. The Levites took the Lord's Covenant Box off the cart. They put it on the large rock. They also put the box which contained the gold images on the rock. The people from Beth Shemesh cut up the cart. They used the wood to make a fire. Then they killed the cows. They burnt them on the fire as a burnt offering to the Lord. That day the people of Beth Shemesh offered many burnt offerings and other sacrifices to the Lord. ¹⁶ The five Philistine rulers watched them as they did that. Then they returned to Ekron on the same day.

¹⁵ Long ago, God's prophet Daniel wrote in the Bible about something that would happen. He said that one day people would put a disgusting thing that causes trouble in the temple. You will see it in the holy place. (When you read this, you must understand what it means.) ¹⁶ At that time, people in Judea must run away to the hills to hide.

¹⁷ A person who is on the roof of his house must not go down into his house.^[a] He must not stop to get anything from his home to take with him. ¹⁸ People who are outside in their fields must not go back to their homes. They must not even go to fetch their coats. ¹⁹ That will be a bad time for women who are soon to have a baby! It will also be a bad time for those women who have little babies! ²⁰ You must pray to God about this time when you have to run away quickly. Pray that this time of trouble will not happen in winter. Pray that it will not happen on your day of rest. ²¹ Great troubles will happen to people at that time. Nothing as bad has ever happened before, since the beginning of the world. Nothing as bad will ever happen again. ²² God will cause those days of great trouble to be not so many. If he did not do that, there would be nobody still alive. But God will cause those days to come to an end. He will do that to help the people that he has chosen. ²³ At that time, someone may say to you, “Look, here is the Messiah.” Or they may say, “There he is!” When they say that, do not believe them. ²⁴ Some people will say to you, “I am the Messiah!” Other people will say, “I am a prophet from God.” But their words will be false. They will do strange and powerful things for people to see. If possible, they would even deceive the people that God has chosen. ²⁵ So be careful! I have told you about these things before they happen.

²⁶ Some people may say to you, “Look, the Messiah is out there in the wilderness.” But do not go out to see who is there. Some people may say to you, “Look, the Messiah is hiding in that secret room.” You must not believe these people. ²⁷ Lightning shines quickly and it lights up the whole of the sky from one side to the other. It will be like that when the Son of Man returns.