Therefore you shall make images of your tumors, and images of your mice that mar the land; and you shall give glory to the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.
God restored his honour by bringing his ark back without the Israelites’ doing anything at all (10-12). The Israelites accepted the Philistines’ gifts and offered sacrifices to God, but God killed those Israelites who looked into the ark. He wanted to impress upon the people that the ark was sacred. They were not to treat it as an object of curiosity or superstition (13-19; cf. Numbers 4:20). The people then took the ark and placed it in a private house in the nearby town of Kiriath-jearim (20-7:1).