2 Kings 23

1Then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him.

2Then the king went up to the house of Yahweh, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets, all the people from small to great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh.

3Then the king stood by the pillar and made the covenant before Yahweh: to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

4Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold to bring out from the temple of Yahweh all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their dust to Bethel.

5And he put an end to the priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, and also those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.

6He brought the Asherah out from the house of Yahweh, outside Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley, and burned it in the Kidron Valley, and beat it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.

7He tore down the houses of the cult prostitutes that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women were weaving hangings for the Asherah.

8He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba. He also tore down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left of a man at the city gate.

9However, the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.

10And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

11He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, from the entrance of the house of Yahweh to the chamber of Nethan-melech the court official, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

12As for the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh, the king tore them down, smashed them there, and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

13And the king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were to the right of the Mount of Destruction, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.

14He shattered the pillars, cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with human bones.

15Also the altar that was at Bethel—the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made—even that altar and the high place he tore down. He burned the high place, crushed it to dust, and burned the Asherah.

16Then Josiah turned and saw the tombs that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took the bones from the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

17Then he said, “What is this monument that I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar at Bethel.”

18And he said, “Leave him alone; let no man disturb his bones.” So they let his bones alone, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

19Josiah also removed all the houses of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke to anger, and he did to them according to all the deeds that he had done at Bethel.

20He slaughtered all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

21Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

22For such a Passover had not been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.

23but only in the eighteenth year of King Josiah was this Passover kept for Yahweh in Jerusalem.

24Moreover, Josiah removed the mediums, the spiritists, the household gods, the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to establish the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Yahweh.

25And before him there was no king like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

26Yet Yahweh did not turn from the fierceness of his great anger, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.

27And Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah from before me, just as I removed Israel; and I will reject this city that I chose—Jerusalem—and the house of which I said, ‘My name will be there.’”

28The rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

29In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the Euphrates River. And King Josiah went to meet him, and he killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.

30His servants carried him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem, and they buried him in his tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

32And he did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.

33And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

34And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz, and he came to Egypt and died there.

35And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver according to Pharaoh’s command. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, each according to his valuation, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah.

37And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.