Judges 18:20
And the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people. And the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people.
The closing chapters of Judges, chapters 17 through 21, record events that occurred in the early part of the period of the judges, even though the main narrative of the book ends with chapter 16. The priest's heart was glad to leave Micah's household and go in the midst of the people with the Danites, because they offered him the priesthood of an entire tribe rather than of one household. What he took with him was the ephod, the teraphim or household gods and idols, and the graven image, which were the objects of Micah's stolen, unauthorized and idolatrous worship. His gladness at joining in the theft and his willing participation show how deeply idolatry and corrupt worship had taken hold in Israel.
In this way the verse belongs to the record of Israel's backsliding and the disgrace and punishment that followed, and specifically to the first apostasy of the tribe of Dan. The Danites carried the priest and the sacred objects with them to Laish, and after destroying the city they rebuilt it as Dan and there established the idolatrous worship, which continued until the ten tribes went into captivity. That apostasy of Dan shown here is suggested as a reason Dan was later omitted from the tribes listed in the sealing of the 144,000. The backsliding idolatry recorded in the verse gives no one permission to do the same with impunity.