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. 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.”

¹⁰ So the men did as instructed.^[a] They took two cows that had calves and harnessed the cows to a cart; they also removed their calves to their stalls.