1 Samuel 6:5-9

6:5 You should make images of the sores and images of the mice ¹  that are destroying the land. You should honor the God of Israel. Perhaps he will release his grip on you, your gods, and your land. ²  6:6 Why harden your hearts like the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? ³  When God ⁴  treated them harshly, didn’t the Egyptians send the Israelites on their way? ⁵  6:7 So now go and make a new cart. Get two cows that have calves and that have never had a yoke placed on them. Harness the cows to the cart and take their calves from them back to their stalls. 6:8 Then take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart, and put in a chest beside it the gold objects you are sending to him as a guilt offering. You should then send it on its way. 6:9 But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has brought this great calamity on us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to us by accident.”

¹ tn Heb “your mice.” A Qumran ms has simply “the mice.”

² tn Heb “Perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you and from upon your gods and from upon your land.”

³ tn Heb “like Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their heart.”

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “and they sent them away and they went.”