Bible verse
but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
1 Samuel 6:9 · BSB
The verses around it, from 1 Samuel 6.
5 Make images of your tumors and of the rats that are ravaging the land. Give glory to the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lift His hand from you and your gods and your land.
6 Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened theirs? When He afflicted them, did they not send the people on their way as they departed?
7 Now, therefore, prepare one new cart with two milk cows that have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up.
8 Take the ark of the LORD, set it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending Him as a guilt offering. Then send the ark on its way,
9 but keep watching it. If it goes up the road to its homeland, toward Beth-shemesh, it is the LORD who has brought on us this great disaster. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not His hand that punished us and that it happened by chance.”
10 So the men did as instructed. They took two milk cows, hitched them to the cart, and penned up their calves.
11 Then they put the ark of the LORD on the cart, along with the chest containing the gold rats and the images of the tumors.
12 And the cows headed straight up the road toward Beth-shemesh, staying on that one highway and lowing as they went, never straying to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed behind them to the border of Beth-shemesh.
13 Now the people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they were overjoyed at the sight.
KJV
And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, [then] he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that [it is] not his hand [that] smote us; it [was] a chance [that] happened to us.
ASV
And see; if it goeth up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.
ERV
And see, if it goeth up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.
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Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible, which is free of copyright restrictions for use on websites. Read the full Bible on Great Faith.