And when Eli heard this cry and wailing he demanded what this noise was and meant, and wherefore they so sorrowed.  Then the man hied and came and told to Eli.  Eli was at that tide ninety-eight years old, and his eyes were waxen blind and might not see, and he said:  I am he that came from the battle, and fled this day from the host.  To whom Eli said:  What is there done, my son?  He answered:  The host of Israel is overthrown and fled tofore the Philistines, and a great ruin is made among the people, thy two sons be slain and the ark of God is taken.  And when Eli heard him name the ark of God he fell down backward by the door and brake his neck and there died.  He was an old man and had judged Israel forty years.  Then the Philistines took the ark of God and set it in their temple of Dagon, by their god Dagon, in Ashdod.  On the morn, the next day early, when they of Ashdod came into their temple, they saw their god Dagon lie on the ground tofore the ark of God upon his face, and the head and the two hands of Dagon were cut off.  And there abode no more but the trunk only in the place.  And God showed many vengeances to them of the country as long as the ark was with them, for God smote them with sickness, and wells boiled in towns and fields of that region, and there grew among them so many mice, that they suffered great persecution and confusion in that city.

The people seeing this vengeance and plague said:  Let not the ark of the God of Israel abide longer with us, for his hand is hard on us and on Dagon our god, and sent for the great masters and governors of the Philistines, and when they were gathered they said:  What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?  And they answered:  Let it be led all about the cities, and so it was, and a great vengeance and death was had upon all the cities, and smote every man with plague from the most to the least.  And then they sent the ark of God into Acheron and when they of Acheron saw the ark, they cried saying:  They have brought the ark of the God of Israel to us, for to slay us and our people.  They cried that the ark should be sent home again, for much people were dead by the vengeance that was taken on them, and a great howling and wailing was among them.  The ark was in the region of the Philistines seven months.  After this they counselled with their priests what they should do with the ark, and it was concluded it should be sent home again, but the priests said:  If ye send it home, send it not void, but what ye owe pay for your trespass and sin, and then ye shall be healed and cured of your sicknesses.  And so they ordained after the number of the five provinces of the Philistines, five pieces of gold and five mice of gold, and led to a wain and put in it two wild kine, which never bear yoke, and said, Leave their calves at home and take the ark and set it on the wain, and also the vessels and pieces of gold that ye have paid for your trespass, set them at the side of the ark and let them go where they will, and thus they sent the ark of God unto the children of Israel.