Judges 18

³⁴The Amorites forced the Danites into the hill country and did not allow them to come down into the plain.

⁶In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

¹Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

⁴⁰The seventh lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Dan:

⁴¹The territory of their inheritance included Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir-shemesh,

²⁵In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

²⁵And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

¹Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

¹¹So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.

¹⁷When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.

⁸When the men returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, “What did you find?”

²Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

²²So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

⁷³After a little while, those standing nearby came up to Peter. “Surely you are one of them,” they said, “for your accent gives you away.”

⁶they told him, “Please say Shibboleth.” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce it correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. So at that time 42,000 Ephraimites were killed.

¹⁶What are you doing here, and who authorized you to carve out a tomb for yourself here—to chisel your tomb in the height and cut your resting place in the rock?

¹⁰“Stay with me,” Micah said to him, “and be my father and priest, and I will give you ten shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes, and your provisions.” So the Levite went in

¹⁹You have profaned Me among My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to My people who would listen, you have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not have lived.

¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock.

¹³The man runs away because he is a hired servant and is unconcerned for the sheep.

¹²Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house.

¹⁰“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would no longer kindle useless fires on My altar! I take no pleasure in you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.

³In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.

¹⁰and all the people, from the least to the greatest, heeded his words and said, “This man is the divine power called the Great Power.”

⁵But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.”

¹“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.

¹²My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.

¹⁴Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Did you know that one of these houses has an ephod, household gods, a graven image, and a molten idol? Now think about what you should do.”

¹⁵Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and grain offering, as well as the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings of all the people of the land. Splatter on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar to seek guidance.”

⁶So the king of Israel assembled the prophets, about four hundred men, and asked them, “Should I go to war against Ramoth-gilead, or should I refrain?” “Go up,” they replied, “and the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

¹⁸Surely the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His loving devotion

¹²And all the prophets were prophesying the same, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

³²“Indeed,” declares the Lord, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams and retell them to lead My people astray with their reckless lies. It was not I who sent them or commanded them, and they are of no benefit at all to these people,” declares the Lord.

²¹I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.

²²But if they had stood in My council, they would have proclaimed My words to My people and turned them back from their evil ways and deeds.”

¹²It is a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

⁴⁷(Later, when the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and put it to the sword. So they took possession of Leshem, settled there, and renamed it after their father Dan.)

¹³I told him that I would judge his house forever for the iniquity of which he knows, because his sons blasphemed God and he did not restrain them.

²⁷After they had taken Micah’s idols and his priest, they went to Laish, to a quiet and unsuspecting people, and they struck them with their swords and burned down the city.

²⁸There was no one to deliver them, because the city was far from Sidon and had no alliance with anyone; it was in a valley near Beth-rehob. And the Danites rebuilt the city and lived there.

⁶(His father had never once reprimanded him by saying, “Why do you act this way?” Adonijah was also very handsome, born next after Absalom.)

³For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and you will have his approval.

¹⁴or to governors as those sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.

²So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

¹¹So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.

²Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

³¹Then Samson’s brothers and his father’s family came down, carried him back, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of his father Manoah. And he had judged Israel twenty years.

²³Then the two men started back, came down from the hill country, and crossed the river. So they came to Joshua son of Nun and reported all that had happened to them.

²⁴“The Lord has surely delivered the entire land into our hands,” they said to Joshua. “Indeed, all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of us.”

³⁰Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”

²⁷Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval.”

³So Joshua said to the Israelites, “How long will you put off entering and possessing the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?

²³So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has pronounced disaster against you.”

¹²Be strong and let us fight bravely for our people and for the cities of our God. May the Lord do what is good in His sight.”

²⁷After they had taken Micah’s idols and his priest, they went to Laish, to a quiet and unsuspecting people, and they struck them with their swords and burned down the city.

¹⁷Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.

⁷So the five men departed and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living securely, like the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. There was nothing lacking in the land and no oppressive ruler. And they were far away from the Sidonians and had no alliance with anyone.

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

¹¹But the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven.

¹²It is a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

¹⁶The six hundred Danites stood at the entrance of the gate, armed with their weapons of war.

²⁵And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him at Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.

⁵So David assembled all Israel, from the River Shihor in Egypt to Lebo-hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim.

⁶David and all Israel went up to Baalah of Judah (that is, Kiriath-jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord, who is enthroned between the cherubim—the ark that is called by the Name.

⁶⁰Kiriath-baal (that is, Kiriath-jearim), and Rabbah—two cities, along with their villages.

⁴Now David had brought the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place he had prepared for it, because he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.

¹Then the men of Kiriath-jearim came for the ark of the Lord and took it into Abinadab’s house on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to guard the ark of the Lord.

²So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

³And while they were near Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite; so they went over and asked him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? Why are you here?”

³⁰And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

¹Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

¹Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim

³³Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him at Gibeah, which had been given to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

⁵Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some household idols, and ordained one of his sons as his priest.

²⁷If you cease to hear instruction, my son, you will stray from the words of knowledge.

³And while they were near Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite; so they went over and asked him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? Why are you here?”

⁴“Micah has done this and that for me,” he replied, “and he has hired me to be his priest.”

²⁸Then one of the soldiers told him, “Your father bound the troops with a solemn oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’ That is why the people are faint.”

¹⁹When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

²⁰To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

²⁷He asked if they were well, and then he asked, “How is your elderly father you told me about? Is he still alive?”

²⁷Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.

²⁶Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’” And she answered, “Everything is all right.”

²²Then David left his supplies in the care of the quartermaster and ran to the battle line. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were doing.

⁴Carry no purse or bag or sandals. Do not greet anyone along the road.

⁵Whatever house you enter, begin by saying, ‘Peace to this house.’

¹⁴Then Israel told him, “Go now and see how your brothers and the flocks are faring, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. And when Joseph arrived in Shechem,

¹¹So six hundred Danites departed from Zorah and Eshtaol, armed with weapons of war.

¹⁴Then the five men who had gone to spy out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Did you know that one of these houses has an ephod, household gods, a graven image, and a molten idol? Now think about what you should do.”

²So the Danites sent out five men from their clans, men of valor from Zorah and Eshtaol, to spy out the land and explore it. “Go and explore the land,” they told them. The men entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night.

⁴So he returned the silver to his mother, and she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who made them into a graven image and a molten idol. And they were placed in the house of Micah.

⁵Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some household idols, and ordained one of his sons as his priest.

¹⁹Now while Laban was out shearing his sheep, Rachel stole her father’s household idols.

¹Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.

²The gods cower; they crouch together, unable to relieve the burden; but they themselves go into captivity.

¹³I will also cut off the carved images and sacred pillars from among you, so that you will no longer bow down to the work of your own hands.

⁵Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth.

¹⁰“Stay with me,” Micah said to him, “and be my father and priest, and I will give you ten shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes, and your provisions.” So the Levite went in

⁹The princes refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands.

³²If you have foolishly exalted yourself or if you have plotted evil, put your hand over your mouth.

¹⁶Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their might. They will put their hands over their mouths, and their ears will become deaf.

²¹And when the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”

¹¹Like ravenous dogs, they are never satisfied. They are shepherds with no discernment; they all turn to their own way, each one seeking his own gain:

¹⁹You have profaned Me among My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to My people who would listen, you have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not have lived.

³Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.

¹⁵They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

¹⁶But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey, otherwise without speech, that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

³³I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing.

¹⁵The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’:

¹⁷Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.

⁵Why was it, O sea, that you fled, O Jordan, that you turned back,

⁵“What troubles you?” the king asked her. “Indeed,” she said, “I am a widow, for my husband is dead.

¹This is the burden against the Valley of Vision: What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the rooftops,

⁵Just then Saul was returning from the field, behind his oxen. “What troubles the people?” asked Saul. “Why are they weeping?” And they relayed to him the words of the men from Jabesh.

²⁸Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’

¹⁸What use is an idol, that a craftsman should carve it—or an image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak.

¹⁹Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”

⁸Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.

¹⁸They do not comprehend or discern, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see and closed their minds so they cannot understand.

¹⁹And no one considers in his heart, no one has the knowledge or insight to say, “I burned half of it in the fire, and I baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make something detestable with the rest of it? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”

¹³Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me, because a Levite has become my priest.”

¹⁷Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

⁵Oholah prostituted herself while she was still Mine. She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—warriors

²“As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice—the Almighty, who has embittered my soul—

⁶And David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

⁸He continued, “You know your father and his men. They are mighty men, and as fierce as a wild bear robbed of her cubs. Moreover, your father is a man of war who will not spend the night with the troops.

⁵May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.

⁴⁷(Later, when the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and put it to the sword. So they took possession of Leshem, settled there, and renamed it after their father Dan.)

⁷So the five men departed and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living securely, like the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. There was nothing lacking in the land and no oppressive ruler. And they were far away from the Sidonians and had no alliance with anyone.

¹⁰When you enter, you will come to an unsuspecting people and a spacious land, for God has delivered it into your hand. It is a place where nothing on earth is lacking.”

¹¹The Israelites put everyone in Hazor to the sword, devoting them to destruction. Nothing that breathed remained, and Joshua burned down Hazor itself.

²²Concerning Dan he said: “Dan is a lion’s cub, leaping out of Bashan.”

⁶When the Ammonites realized that they had become a stench to David, they hired twenty thousand Aramean foot soldiers from Beth-rehob and Zoba, as well as a thousand men from the king of Maacah and twelve thousand men from Tob.

²¹So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.

⁷So the five men departed and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living securely, like the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting. There was nothing lacking in the land and no oppressive ruler. And they were far away from the Sidonians and had no alliance with anyone.

²or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

²²Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:

⁶And your maidservant had two sons who were fighting in the field with no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him.

⁴⁷(Later, when the territory of the Danites was lost to them, they went up and fought against Leshem, captured it, and put it to the sword. So they took possession of Leshem, settled there, and renamed it after their father Dan.)

²⁰And Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, conquering Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and the whole land of Naphtali, including the region of Chinnereth.

¹⁴And when Abram heard that his relative had been captured, he mobilized the 318 trained men born in his household, and they set out in pursuit as far as Dan.

⁶Then Rachel said, “God has vindicated me; He has heard my plea and given me a son.” So she named him Dan.

²⁹One calf he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.

³⁰And this thing became a sin; the people walked as far as Dan to worship before one of the calves.

¹Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

¹⁰So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great—thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.

¹¹The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

²²And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

⁵Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some household idols, and ordained one of his sons as his priest.

³And when he had returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I wholly dedicate the silver to the Lord for my son’s benefit, to make a graven image and a molten idol. Therefore I will now return it to you.”

¹Again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord, so He delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

²⁹For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt and turn from the path I have commanded you. And in the days to come, disaster will befall you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger by the work of your hands.”

¹Then the whole congregation of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. And though the land was subdued before them,

¹⁸The Levite replied, “We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote hill country of Ephraim, where I am from. I went to Bethlehem in Judah, and now I am going to the house of the Lord; but no one has taken me into his home,

³Year after year Elkanah would go up from his city to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord.

¹²But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

²¹and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

⁴So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.