50,070 killed for looking into the ark of the Lord

In his last killing, God was busy fashioning hemorrhoids and placing them in the Philistines' secret parts. Stuff like that gets annoying after a while.

So the Philistines asked their priests how they can get God to stop. The priests told them to make five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice as trespass offerings, and put the ark and the offerings in a cart pulled by two cows. Then let the cows go wherever they choose. If they go toward Bethshemesh, then it was God who was striking the people with hemorrhoids in their secret parts.

The Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the LORD? And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but ... return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed ...

What shall be the trespass offering? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice ... take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the ... trespass offering ... and send it away ...

And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us. 1 Samuel 6:2-9

Since that sounded like a reasonable plan, that's what they did. And the cows headed straight for Bethshemesh "and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left."

They laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh. 6:11-12

So the world now knows for sure that it was God who killed the Philistine people by putting hemorrhoids in their secret parts.

That would have been a happy ending, I suppose, except some of the Bethshemeshites looked into the ark. So God had to kill 50,070 of them.

He smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. 6:19

Stories like this can only be found in the Bible.

The Friendly Atheist - How many people did God kill in the Bible?

50,070 killed for looking into the ark of the Lord