Right inhis own eyes.

Judges 17

¹There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah.

²He said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me. I took it.” His mother said, “May Yahweh bless my son!”

³He restored the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, then his mother said, “I most certainly dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”

⁴When he restored the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to a silversmith, who made a carved image and a molten image out of it. It was in the house of Micah.

⁵The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

⁶In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.

⁷There was a young man out of Bethlehem Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite; and he lived there.

⁸The man departed out of the city, out of Bethlehem Judah, to live where he could find a place, and he came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he traveled.

⁹Micah said to him, “Where did you come from?” He said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem Judah, and I am looking for a place to live.”

¹⁰Micah said to him, “Dwell with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver per year, a suit of clothing, and your food.” So the Levite went in.

¹¹The Levite was content to dwell with the man; and the young man was to him as one of his sons.

¹²Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah.

¹³Then Micah said, “Now know I that Yahweh will do good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest.”

Judges 18

¹In those days there was no king in Israel. In those days the tribe of the Danites sought an inheritance to dwell in; for to that day, their inheritance had not fallen to them among the tribes of Israel.

²The children of Dan sent five men of their family from their whole number, men of valor, from Zorah, and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land, and to search it. They said to them, “Go, explore the land!” They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.

³When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man the Levite; so they went over there, and said to him, “Who brought you here? What do you do in this place? What do you have here?”

⁴He said to them, “Thus and thus has Micah dealt with me, and he has hired me, and I am become his priest.”

⁵They said to him, “Please ask counsel of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.”

⁶The priest said to them, “Go in peace. Your way in which you go is before Yahweh.”

⁷Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people who were there, how they lived in safety, in the way of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no one in the land, possessing authority, that might put them to shame in anything, and they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone else.

⁸They came to their brothers at Zorah and Eshtaol; and their brothers asked them, “What do you say?”

⁹They said, “Arise, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. Do you stand still? Don’t be slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land.

¹⁰When you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land is large; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.”

¹¹The family of the Danites set out from Zorah and Eshtaol, with six hundred men armed with weapons of war.

¹²They went up and encamped in Kiriath Jearim, in Judah. Therefore they called that place Mahaneh Dan, to this day. Behold, it is behind Kiriath Jearim.

¹³They passed from there to the hill country of Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah.

¹⁴Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered, and said to their brothers, “Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a carved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do.”

¹⁵They went over there, and came to the house of the young Levite man, even to the house of Micah, and asked him how he was doing.

¹⁶The six hundred men armed with their weapons of war, who were of the children of Dan, stood by the entrance of the gate.

¹⁷The five men who went to spy out the land went up, and came in there, and took the engraved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image; and the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war.

¹⁸When these went into Micah’s house, and took the engraved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

¹⁹They said to him, “Hold your peace, put your hand on your mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?”

²⁰The priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, the teraphim, and the engraved image, and went with the people.

²¹So they turned and departed, and put the little ones, the livestock, and the goods before them.

²²When they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah’s house gathered together and overtook the children of Dan.

²³As they cried to the children of Dan, they turned their faces, and said to Micah, “What ails you, that you come with such a company?”

²⁴He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’”

²⁵The children of Dan said to him, “Don’t let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows fall on you, and you lose your life, with the lives of your household.”

²⁶The children of Dan went their way; and when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, he turned and went back to his house.

²⁷They took that which Micah had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword; then they burned the city with fire.

²⁸There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone else; and it was in the valley that lies by Beth Rehob. They built the city, and lived in it.

²⁹They called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born to Israel; however the name of the city used to be Laish.

³⁰The children of Dan set up for themselves the engraved image; and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land.

³¹So they set up for themselves Micah’s engraved image which he made, and it remained all the time that God’s house was in Shiloh.

Judges 21

¹Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying, “None of us will give his daughter to Benjamin as a wife.”

²The people came to Bethel, and sat there until evening before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept severely.

³They said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that there should be one tribe lacking in Israel today?”

⁴On the next day, the people rose early, and built an altar there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

⁵The children of Israel said, “Who is there among all the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up in the assembly to Yahweh?” For they had made a great oath concerning him who didn’t come up to Yahweh to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.”

⁶The children of Israel grieved for Benjamin their brother, and said, “There is one tribe cut off from Israel today.

⁷How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since we have sworn by Yahweh that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?”

⁸They said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel who didn’t come up to Yahweh to Mizpah?” Behold, no one came from Jabesh Gilead to the camp to the assembly.

⁹For when the people were counted, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead there.

¹⁰The congregation sent twelve thousand of the most valiant men there, and commanded them, saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.

¹¹This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain with a man.”

¹²They found among the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them to the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

¹³The whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin who were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them.

¹⁴Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh Gilead. There still weren’t enough for them.

¹⁵The people grieved for Benjamin, because Yahweh had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.

¹⁶Then the elders of the congregation said, “How shall we provide wives for those who remain, since the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?”

¹⁷They said, “There must be an inheritance for those who are escaped of Benjamin, that a tribe not be blotted out from Israel.

¹⁸However we may not give them wives of our daughters, for the children of Israel had sworn, saying, ‘Cursed is he who gives a wife to Benjamin.’”

¹⁹They said, “Behold, there is a feast of Yahweh from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.”

²⁰They commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, “Go and lie in wait in the vineyards,

²¹and see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards, and each man catch his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

²²It shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, that we will say to them, ‘Grant them graciously to us, because we didn’t take for each man his wife in battle, neither did you give them to them, otherwise you would now be guilty.’”

²³The children of Benjamin did so, and took wives for themselves, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off. They went and returned to their inheritance, built the cities, and lived in them.

²⁴The children of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they each went out from there to his own inheritance.

²⁵In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.

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