12A Benjaminite ran from the battlefield and reached Shiloh the same day; his clothes were rent and there was earth on his head.c 13When he arrived, he found Eli sitting on a seat, waiting beside the road—his heart trembling for the Ark of God. The man entered the city to spread the news, and the whole city broke out in a cry. 14And when Eli heard the sound of the outcry and asked, “What is the meaning of this uproar?” the man rushed over to tell Eli. 15Now Eli was ninety-eight years old; his eyes were fixed in a blind stare. 16The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battlefield; I have just fled from the battlefield.” [Eli] asked, “What happened, my son?” 17The bearer of the news replied, “Israel fled before the Philistines and the troops also suffered a great slaughter. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the Ark of God has been captured.” 18When he mentioned the Ark of God, [Eli] fell backward off the seat besideb the gate, broke his neck and died; for he was an old man and heavy. He had been a chieftain of Israel for forty years.
19His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was with child, about to give birth. When she heard the report that the Ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she was seized with labor pains, and she crouched down and gave birth. 20As she lay dying, the women attending her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have borne a son.” But she did not respond or pay heed. 21She named the boy Ichabod, meaning, “The glory has departed from Israel”—referring to the capture of the Ark of God and to [the death of] her father-in-law and her husband. 22“The glory is gone from Israel,” she said, “for the Ark of God has been captured.”
5 When the Philistines captured the Ark of God, they brought it from Eben-ezer to Ashdod. 2The Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon and they set it up beside Dagon. 3Early the next day, the Ashdodites found Dagon lying face down on the ground in front of the Ark of the LORD. They picked Dagon up and put him back in his place; 4but early the next morning, Dagon was again lying prone on the ground in front of the Ark of the LORD. The head and both hands of Dagon were cut off, lying on the threshold; only a-Dagon’s trunk was left intact.-a 5That is why, to this day, the priests of Dagon and all who enter the temple of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod.
6The hand of the LORD lay heavy upon the Ashdodites, and He wrought havoc among them: He struck b-Ashdod and its territory-b with hemorrhoids. 7When the men of Ashdod saw how matters stood, they said, “The Ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for His hand has dealt harshly with us and with our god Dagon.” 8They sent messengers and assembled all the lords of the Philistines and asked, “What shall we do with the Ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the Ark of the God of Israel be removed to Gath.” So they moved the Ark of the God of Israel [to Gath]. 9And after they had moved it, the hand of the LORD came against the city, causing great panic; He struck the people of the city, young and old, so that hemorrhoids a-broke out-a among them. 10Then they sent the Ark of God to Ekron. But when the Ark of God came to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, “They have moved the Ark of the God of Israel to us to slay us and our kindred.” 11They too sent messengers and assembled all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send the Ark of the God of Israel away, and let it return to its own place, that it may not slay us and our kindred.” For the panic of death pervaded the whole city, so heavily had the hand of God fallen there; 12and the men who did not die were stricken with hemorrhoids. The outcry of the city went up to heaven.
6 The Ark of the LORD remained in the territory of the Philistines seven months.a 2Then the Philistines summoned the priests and the diviners and asked, “What shall we do about the Ark of the Lord? Tell us with what we shall send it off to its own place.” 3They answered, “If you are going to send the Ark of the God of Israel away, do not send it away without anything; you must also pay an indemnity to Him. Then you will be healed, and b-He will make Himself known to you; otherwise His hand will not turn away from you.”-b 4They asked, “What is the indemnity that we should pay to Him?” They answered, “Five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice, corresponding to the number of lords of the Phil-istines; for the same plague struck all of youc and your lords. 5You shall make figures of your hemorrhoids and of the mice that are ravaging your land; thus you shall honor the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lighten the weight of His hand upon you and your gods and your land. 6Don’t harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts. As you know, when He made a mockery of them, they had to let Israelc go, and they departed. 7Therefore, get a new cart ready and two milch cows that have not borne a yoke; harness the cows to the cart, but take back indoors the calves that follow them. 8Take the Ark of the LORD and place it on the cart; and put next to it in a chest the gold objects you are paying Him as indemnity. Send it off, and let it go its own way. 9Then watch: If it goes up the road to Beth-shemesh, to His own territory, it was He who has inflicted this great harm on us. But if not, we shall know that it was not His hand that struck us; it just happened to us by chance.”
10The men did so. They took two milch cows and harnessed them to the cart, and shut up their calves indoors. 11They placed the Ark of the LORD on the cart together with the chest, the golden mice, and the figures of their hemorrhoids. 12The cows went straight ahead along the road to Beth-shemesh. They went along a single highroad, lowing as they went, and turning off neither to the right nor to the left; and the lords of the Philistines walked behind them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.
13The people of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up and saw the Ark, and they rejoiced d-when they saw [it].-d 14The cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and it stopped there. They split up the wood of the cart and presented the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. A large stone was there; 15and the Levites took down the Ark of the LORD and the chest beside it containing the gold objects and placed them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth-shemesh presented burnt offerings and other sacrifices to the LORD that day. 16The five lords of the Philistines saw this and returned the same day to Ekron.
17The following were the golden hemorrhoids that the Philistines paid as an indemnity to the LORD: For Ashdod, one; for Gaza, one; for Ash-kelon, one; for Gath, one; for Ekron, one. 18eAs for the golden mice, their number accorded with all the Philistine towns that belonged to the five lords—both fortified towns and unwalled f-villages, as far as-f the great stoneg on which the Ark of the LORD was set down, to this day, in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.
7 19[The LORD] struck at the men of Beth-shemesh because h-they looked into the Ark of the LORD; He struck down seventy men among the people [and] fifty thousand men.-h The people mourned, for He had inflicted a great slaughter upon the population. 20And the men of Beth-shemesh asked, “Who can stand in attendance on the LORD, this holy God? And to whom shall He go up from us?” 21They sent messengers to the inhab-itants of Kiriath-jearim to say, “The Philistines have sent back the Ark of the LORD. Come
