Micah’s sanctuary and the Levite priest
1 Once there was a man named Micah who lived in the Ephraim highlands.
2
He said to his mother, "The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you led you to declare a curse and even to repeat it when I could hear. I have that silver. I'm the one who took it, and now I'll give it back to you." His mother replied, "May the LORD bless you, my son!"
3
When he gave the eleven hundred pieces of silver back to his mother, she said, "I wholeheartedly devote this silver to the LORD, to be made into a sculpted image and a molded image for my son."
4
So he gave the silver back to his mother, and she took two hundred pieces of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who used it for a sculpted image and a molded image. And they were placed in Micah's house.
5
This man Micah had his own sanctuary. He made a priestly vest and divine images and appointed one of his sons to be his personal priest.
6
In those days there was no king in Israel; each person did what they thought to be right.
7
Now there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, from the area of the Judahite clan. He was a Levite residing there as an immigrant.