tines, as though it exacted these disasters as a tribute to be
paid it for its coming among them.

2. When those that had experienced these miseries were tired out with
them, and when those that heard of them were taught thereby not to admit
the ark among them, since they paid so dear a tribute for it, at length
they sought for some contrivance and method how they might get free from
it: so the governors of the five cities, Gath, and Ekron, and Askelon,
as also of Gaza, and Ashclod, met together, and considered what was fit
to be done; and at first they thought proper to send the ark back to
its own people, as allowing that God had avenged its cause; that the
miseries they had undergone came along with it, and that these were sent
on their cities upon its account, and together with it. However, there
were those that said they should not do so, nor suffer themselves to
be deluded, as ascribing the cause of their miseries to it, because it
could not have such power and force upon them; for, had God had such a
regard to it, it would not have been delivered into the hands of men. So
they exhorted them to be quiet, and to take patiently what had befallen
them, and to suppose there was no other cause of it but nature, which,
at certain revolutions of time, produces such mutations in the bodies
of men, in the earth, in plants, and in all things that grow out of the
earth. But the counsel that prevailed over those already described, was
that of certain men, who were believed to have distinguished themselves
in former times for their understanding and prudence, and who, in their
present circumstances, seemed above all the rest to speak properly.
These men said it was not right either to send the ark away, or to
retain it, but to dedicate five golden images, one for every city, as
a thank-offering to God, on account of his having taken care of their
preservation, and having kept them alive when their lives were likely
to be taken away by such distempers as they were not able to bear up
against. They also would have them make five golden mice like to those
that devoured and destroyed their country [2] to put them in a bag, and
lay them upon the ark; to make them a new cart also for it, and to yoke
milch kine to it [3] but to shut up their calves, and keep them from
them, lest, by following after them, they should prove a hinderance to
their dams, and that the dams might return the faster out of a desire of
those calves; then to dri