to worship their god, they found him paying the same worship to
the ark, for he lay along, as having fallen down from the basis
whereon he had stood: so they took him up, and set him on his
basis again, and were much troubled at what had happened; and as
they frequently came to Dagon and found him still lying along, in
a posture of adoration to the ark, they were in very great
distress and confusion. At length God sent a very destructive
disease upon the city and country of Ashdod, for they died of the
dysentery or flux, a sore distemper, that brought death upon them
very suddenly; for before the soul could, as usual in easy
deaths, be well loosed from the body, they brought up their
entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten, and what was
entirely corrupted by the disease. And as to the fruits of their
country, a great multitude of mice arose out of the earth and
hurt them, and spared neither the plants nor the fruits. Now
while the people of Ashdod were under these misfortunes, and were
not able to support themselves under their calamities, they
perceived that they suffered thus because of the ark, and that
the victory they had gotten, and their having taken the ark
captive, had not happened for their good; they therefore sent to
the people of Askelon, and desired that they would receive the
ark among them. This desire of the people of Ashdod was not
disagreeable to those of Askelon, so they granted them that
favor. But when they had gotten the ark, they were in the same
miserable condition; for the ark carried along with it the
disasters that the people of Ashdod had suffered, to those who
received it from them. Those of Askelon also sent it away from
themselves to others: nor did it stay among those others neither;
for since they were pursued by the same disasters, they still
sent it to the neighboring cities; so that the ark went round,