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Judges 17:1-13; 18:1-6, 27-31

There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. ² And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 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.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord.” ³ And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” ⁴ So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah. ⁵ And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest. ⁶ In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

⁷ Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. ⁸ And the man departed from the town of Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn where he could find a place. And as he journeyed, he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. ⁹ And Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to sojourn where I may find a place.” ¹⁰ And Micah said to him, “Stay with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year and a suit of clothes and your living.” And the Levite went in. ¹¹ And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons. ¹² And Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. ¹³ Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.”

18:1-6

In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them. ² So the people of Dan sent five able men from the whole number of their tribe, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it. And they said to them, “Go and explore the land.” And they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there. ³ When they were by the house of Micah, they recognized the voice of the young Levite. And they turned aside and said to him, “Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?” ⁴ And he said to them, “This is how Micah dealt with me: he has hired me, and I have become his priest.” ⁵ And they said to him, “Inquire of God, please, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.” ⁶ And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the Lord.”

18:27-31

²⁷ But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest who belonged to him, and they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire. ²⁸ And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone. It was in the valley that belongs to Beth-rehob. Then they rebuilt the city and lived in it. ²⁹ And they named the city Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was Laish at the first. ³⁰ And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves, and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. ³¹ So they set up Micah's carved image that he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.

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Watch the Sermon

Summary: The remaining chapters are not at the end of the story. Samson was the last judge and in delivering Israel through his death, we come to the end of the period of the judges. These remaining chapters are like an epilogue to the story. Throughout the book, we have heard how the people did "evil in the sight of God." In this epilogue, we get a street level view of what it looks like to do evil in the eyes of God.  It is a snapshot of the life and times of Israel during the period of the judges. We see a people who ultimately do not reject religion per se but repudiate God as he has revealed himself. It can be summed up in a repeating idea: 17:6: "In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." We are introduced to a religious chaos and homemade religion. 

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