Judges 18:17

¹⁴Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered and said to their brothers, “Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim,^[+] and a carved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do.”

⁴When he restored the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver, and gave them to a silversmith, who made a carved image and a molten image out of it. It was in the house of Micah.

⁵The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim,^[+] and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

²The children of Dan sent five men of their family from their whole number, men of valor, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to search it. They said to them, “Go, explore the land!” They came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, and lodged there.

³¹Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? He who will contend for him, let him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has broken down his altar!”

²The Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, “What shall we do with the LORD’s ark? Show us how we should send it to its place.”

³They said, “If you send away the ark of the God of Israel, don’t send it empty; but by all means return a trespass offering to him. Then you will be healed, and it will be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.”

⁴Then they said, “What should the trespass offering be which we shall return to him?” They said, “Five golden tumors and five golden mice, for the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

⁵Therefore you shall make images of your tumors and images of your mice that mar the land; and you shall give glory to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will release his hand from you, from your gods, and from your land. ⁶Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn’t they let the people go, and they departed?

⁷“Now therefore take and prepare yourselves a new cart and two milk cows on which there has come no yoke; and tie the cows to the cart, and bring their calves home from them; ⁸and take the LORD’s ark and lay it on the cart. Put the jewels of gold, which you return him for a trespass offering, in a box by its side; and send it away, that it may go. ⁹Behold, if it goes up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has done us this great evil; but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that struck us. It was a chance that happened to us.”

¹³I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars from among you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands.

⁷They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

¹Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary. ²They stoop and they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but they have gone into captivity.

¹¹God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

¹⁹Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim^[+] that were her father’s.