would you wait until they were grown? Would you refrain from getting married? No, my daughters. It is much more bitter for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has turned against me.”
So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to His own place that He might not kill me and my people,” for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city. The hand of God was very heavy there.
It happened that after they had carried it about, the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction. And He struck the men of the city, both small and great. And tumors broke out on them.
See, if it goes up by the way of His own territory to Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we will know that it is not His hand that struck us; it was by chance that it happened to us.”