God's Covenant Box causes trouble for the Philistines

1 When the Philistines took God's Covenant Box, they took it from Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. 2 They carried it into the temple of Dagon, their god. They put the box next to the idol of Dagon. 3 The next morning, the people in Ashdod got up early. They saw that Dagon had fallen down in front of the Lord's Covenant Box. The idol's face was touching the ground. So they took Dagon and they put him back in his place.

4 The next morning, they got up early again. They saw that Dagon had fallen down in front of the Lord's Covenant Box again! His head and both his hands had broken off. They were lying on the step of the temple's door. Only his body remained together. 5 Because of that, even today Dagon's priests and other people never walk on the step of Dagon's temple in Ashdod.

6 The Lord punished the people who lived in Ashdod. He caused them to have a lot of pain, as well as the people in the places near Ashdod. He caused tumours to grow on their bodies. 7 When the people in Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, ‘The Covenant Box of Israel's God must not stay here with us. He is punishing us and our god Dagon.’

8 So the Philistine rulers met together. Ashdod's people asked them, ‘What should we do with the Covenant Box of Israel's God?’

The rulers answered, ‘Take it away to Gath.’ So the men took it to that city.

9 After they had moved the Covenant Box to Gath, the Lord punished the people in that city too. He made them all very afraid. He caused tumours to grow on them, young people as well as old people. 10 So then they took God's Covenant Box to Ekron.

When God's Covenant Box arrived in Ekron, the people screamed. They said, ‘They have brought the Covenant Box of Israel's God here! They want to kill us all!’ 11 So they called the Philistine rulers to meet together. Ekron's people said to them, ‘Take away the Covenant Box of Israel's God! Send it back to its proper place. If you leave it here, it will kill us and all our families.’

All the people in the town were afraid of death. God had already started to punish them a lot. 12 Many people had already died. All the other people in the town had tumours on their bodies. So they cried loudly up to the skies for help.

1 Samuel 6

The Philistines give back God's Covenant Box

1 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. 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. 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.

17 The Philistines had sent the gold tumours as an offering to the Lord. They wanted him to forgive them. There was one gold tumour for each of their five towns: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron. 18 The Philistines also sent five gold mice. There was one gold mouse for each of the five towns that had a ruler. Those were strong cities that had walls around them. Each town also had villages near to it. The large rock where the Levites put the Lord's Covenant Box is still there. So we remember what happened that day in Joshua's field in Beth Shemesh.

19 But some of the men from Beth Shemesh looked inside the Lord's Covenant Box. So God killed 70 of them. The people were very sad because the Lord had punished them so much. 20 The people of Beth Shemesh said, ‘The Lord is a holy God! Nobody can go near to him! We must send his Covenant Box away from us. But who can ever take care of it?’

21 So they sent people to Kiriath-Jearim with a message. They said, ‘The Philistines have sent the Lord's Covenant Box back to Israel. Please come and take it from us. Take it to your town.’

1 Samuel 7

1 So men came from Kiriath-Jearim to fetch the Lord's Covenant Box. They took it to Abinadab's house. His house was on a hill. They chose his son, Eleazar, to take care of the Lord's Covenant Box as his special job.

Samuel rules in Israel

2 The Covenant Box stayed at Kiriath-Jearim for a long time. It was there for 20 years. During this time, the Israelites were sad. They prayed for the Lord to help them again.

3 Then Samuel said to all the Israelite people, ‘If you truly want to turn back to the Lord, you must show that you mean it. You must remove all your foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth. You must give your lives completely to the Lord. You must worship only the Lord. If you do that, he will save you from the power of the Philistines.’

4 So the Israelites removed all their idols of the false gods called Baal and Ashtoreth. They only worshipped the Lord.

5 Then Samuel told all the Israelites, ‘Meet together at Mizpah. I will pray to the Lord for you there.’

6 So they all met together at Mizpah. They got water from a well and they poured it out for the Lord. They did not eat food that day. They prayed and they said, ‘We have done bad things against the Lord.’

Samuel became leader of the Israelite people at Mizpah.

7 The Philistines heard the news that the Israelites had met together at Mizpah. So the Philistine rulers led their people to attack the Israelites. When the Israelites heard about this, they became very afraid of the Philistines. 8 They said to Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord our God. Do not stop. Ask him to help us. Ask him to save us from the Philistines.’ 9 So Samuel took a baby lamb. He gave it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel asked the Lord to help the Israelites. The Lord answered his prayer in this way:

10 While Samuel was giving the burnt offerings to the Lord, the Philistines moved nearer to attack the Israelites. But the Lord caused a very loud noise of thunder to frighten the Philistines. They became very confused and they started to run away from the Israelites. 11 Then the Israelite men came out from Mizpah. They chased the Philistines as far as a place near Beth-Kar. They killed the Philistines as they chased them.

12 After that, Samuel took a stone. He fixed it in the ground between Mizpah and Shen. He called the stone Ebenezer. He said, ‘The Lord has helped us all this way.’

13 That is how the Israelites won the fight against the Philistines. The Philistines did not attack Israel land again. All the time that Samuel was alive, the Lord stopped the Philistines from attacking Israel.

14 The Israelites took back the towns and the land that the Philistines had taken from them. These towns were between Ekron and Gath. Also, the Israelites and the Amorites did not fight against each other.

15 Samuel continued to be the leader of the Israelites while he was alive. 16 Every year, he travelled to Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah. In all those towns he was a judge for the Israelite people. 17 But he always returned to his home at Ramah. He was a judge for the Israelite people there too. He built an altar in Ramah to worship the Lord there.