³⁰ There the Danites set up for themselves the idol, and Jonathan son of Gershom,^(A) the son of Moses,^[a] and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity of the land.

¹⁰ So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated^(A) and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. ¹¹ The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.^(B)

² The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. ³ When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why^(A) did the Lord bring defeat on us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark^(B) of the Lord’s covenant from Shiloh,^(C) so that he may go with us^(D) and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

⁵ Now this man Micah had a shrine,^(A) and he made an ephod^(B) and some household gods^(C) and installed^(D) one of his sons as his priest.^(E)

³ When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make an image overlaid with silver.^(A) I will give it back to you.”

The Birth of Samson

13 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines^(A) for forty years.^(B)

²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,^[a](A) saying, “I have become a foreigner^(B) in a foreign land.”