A man named Micah stole 1,100 pieces of silver from his Mom. When he told her what he had done she was happy and said, God bless you my son for giving this back to me. I was going to use it to make a statue for us to bow down to.

The Lord God had forbid making statues because no man knows what God looks like. His beauty is too big. All the statues would be wrong.

Micah’s mother took back the money and gave some of it to a man who worked with metal and he shaped it into a statue for them.

Then Micah made a house for his gods and their clothes and other stuff and put one of his sons to be in charge over it all.

At that time there was no king in Israel and every man did what seemed right to him.

Then a young man came traveling and stayed at Micah’s house. He was looking for a place to live. He was from the family God gave the job of keeping His house.

Micah talked with him and asked him to stay with him and be a father and priest to them over his house of gods. He said, I will give you ten shekels of silver a year and your food and clothes to wear.

So the young man agreed to stay with Micah. Micah said, Now I know that the Lord will do good to me because I have this man from the family of Levi for my priest.

Israel’s family of Dan had not yet gone in and taken the land God gave them in His special land for their inheritance. So they sent 5 men out to search for their land.

The men came to the house of Micah and stayed there for the night.

While they were there, they heard the voice of someone they knew, the man from the family of Levi that Micah and hired to be his priest. When they talked with him, he told them of Micah’s idols.

The men of Dan asked the priest to pray for them and ask if God if they were going the right way.

The priest asked God and told them, Go in peace. This is the way God set for you.

So the men went and found the place God had for them. When they reported back to their brothers they said, It is a peaceful and secure place that lacks nothing God made in all the earth.

As they passed by Micah’s house on their way to take their land, they said to their brothers, Do you know that this man has a carved image and clothes and things of worship.

The men went in and stole the image and worship things and said to the priest, Come with us. It is better for you to be a priest for a whole family in Israel, than just for this one man. So the priest went with them.

Micah gathered some men to go after them and get back his idol, but the family of Dan was too strong and talked Micah out of following after them.

The family of Dan went to their place and fought and took the land and the city and called it Dan.

They set up the image and it stayed there until many years later when God took Israel out of His special land for that very reason of them making their own gods to bow down to instead of God the Lord who made them in His own image.