1 Samuel 5:1-12
1 And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod.
2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon.
3 And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.
4 And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.
5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon's house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day.
6 But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.
7 And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us: for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.
8 They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither.
9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.
10 Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of the God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people.
11 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 it slay us not, and our people:a for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.
12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.
Now the Philistines took this ark of the covenant, and they brought it to one of their cities on the coast the city of Ashdod. And they put the ark of the covenant in their temple of their god Dagon, next to the idol of Dagon. And in the morning, when they came in to worship their god Dagon, they found that the idol was fallen on its face on the floor. So they set him up on the pedestal again. And the next morning when they came in, their god Dagon was lying on the floor but both of his hands had been snapped off, and his neck, his head is rolled out and away from him. So they, and then all of the many men in Ashdod began to break out with boils all over them. [So they began to relate these things to the Ark of the Covenant being with them.] And so they carried the ark of the covenant to another Philistine city, the city of Gath. They said, Here you fellows keep this thing. And then the men of Gath began to break out in boils all over them and so they gathered together with the lords of the Philistines and said, What shall we do with this thing? And they said, Well let's take it to Ekron. And the men of Ekron said, Oh no, you're not bringing that thing here. We don't want it (1 Samuel 5:1-11).
So here they were plagued with this thing, they didn't know exactly what to do with it. "