1 Samuel 6:16-21

EasyEnglish Bible

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.^[a] 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.’