17:1  Now there lived a man of the hill country of Ephraim who had the name of Micah.

17:2  He said to his mother, "The eleven hundred pieces of silver which someone took from you, about which you uttered a curse in my hearing, behold, the silver belongs to me; I took it." And his mother said, " May the LORD bless my son."

17:3  He then returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, "I wholly dedicate the silver from my hand to the LORD for my son to make a graven image and a molten image; now therefore, I will return them to you."

17:4  So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith who made them into a graven image and a molten image, and they stood in the house of Micah.

17:5  And the man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and household idols and consecrated one of his sons, that he might become his priest.

17:6  In those days Israel had no king; every man did what he considered right in his own eyes.

17:7  Now there lived a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who served as a Levite; and he stayed there.

17:8  Then the man departed from the city, from Bethlehem in Judah, to stay wherever he might find a place; and as he made his journey, he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah.

17:9  Micah said to him, "Where do you come from?" And he said to him, "I proclaim myself as a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I plan to stay wherever I may find a place."

17:10  Micah then said to him, "Dwell with me and become a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a suit of clothes, and your maintenance." So the Levite went in.

17:11  The Levite agreed to live with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons.

17:12  So Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in the house of Micah.

17:13  Then Micah said, "Now I know that the LORD will prosper me, seeing I have a Levite as priest."