Micah’s Idols

17 There was a man named Micah who lived in the hill country of Ephraim. ² Micah said to his mother, “Do you remember that someone stole 28 pounds^[a] of silver from you? I heard you say a curse about that. Well, I have the silver. I took it.”

His mother said, “The Lord bless you, my son.”

³ Micah gave the 28 pounds of silver back to his mother. Then she said, “I will give this silver as a special gift to the Lord. I will give it to my son so that he can make a statue and cover it with the silver. So now, son, I give the silver back to you.”

⁴ But Micah gave the silver back to his mother. So she took about 5 pounds^[b] of the silver and gave them to a silversmith.^[c] He used the silver to make a statue covered with silver. The statue was put in Micah’s house. ⁵ Micah had a temple for worshiping idols. He made an ephod^[d] and some house idols. Then Micah chose one of his sons to be his priest. ⁶ (At that time the Israelites did not have a king, so everyone did what they thought was right.)

⁷ There was a young man who was a Levite from the city of Bethlehem in Judah. He had been living among the tribe of Judah. ⁸ He left Bethlehem to look for another place to live. As he was traveling, he came to Micah’s house in the hill country of the land of Ephraim. ⁹ Micah asked him, “Where have you come from?”

The young man answered, “I am a Levite from the city of Bethlehem in Judah. I am looking for a place to live.”

¹⁰ Then Micah said to him, “Live with me. Be my father and my priest. I will give you 4 ounces^[e] of silver each year. I will also give you clothes and food.”

The Levite did what Micah asked. ¹¹ The young Levite agreed to live with Micah. He became like one of Micah’s own sons. ¹² Micah chose him to be his priest. So the young man became a priest and lived in Micah’s house. ¹³ And Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me. I know this because I have a man from the tribe of Levi to be my priest.”