³⁰ Then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of ^[a]Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan ^(A)until the day of the captivity of the land.

¹⁰ So the Philistines fought, and ^(A)Israel was ^[a]defeated, and every man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter, and there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. ¹¹ Also ^(B)the ark of God was captured; and ^(C)the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

² Then the ^(A)Philistines put themselves in battle array against Israel. And when they joined battle, Israel was ^[a]defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field. ³ And when the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the Lord defeated us today before the Philistines? ^(B)Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies.”

⁵ The man Micah had a ^(A)shrine, and made an ^(B)ephod and ^(C)household^[a] idols; and he consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

³ So when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, “I had wholly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son, to ^(A)make a carved image and a molded image; now therefore, I will return it to you.”

The Birth of Samson^(A)

13 Again the children of Israel ^(B)did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them ^(C)into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

²² And she bore him a son. He called his name ^(A)Gershom,^[a] for he said, “I have been ^(B)a ^[b]stranger in a foreign land.”