2 Kings 23

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

2The king went up to the house of Yahweh with all the men of Judah and all the people living in Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people from the least to the greatest. He read aloud in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh.

3The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before Yahweh to follow Yahweh and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people committed themselves to the covenant.

4The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second rank, and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of Yahweh all the articles 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 ashes to Bethel.

5He did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the towns of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

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

7He tore down the quarters of the cult prostitutes that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove coverings for Asherah.

8He brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He tore down the high places at the gates, the one at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which was on the left as one enters the city gate.

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

10He defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one could 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, by the room of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the precincts. He burned the chariots of the sun in the fire.

12The king tore down the altars that the kings of Judah had made on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the house of Yahweh. He smashed them and removed them from there, and he threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

13The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the detestable idol of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

14He smashed the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their sites with human bones.

15Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, even that altar and the high place he tore down. He burned the high place and ground it to dust, and he burned the Asherah pole.

16As Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside. He sent men to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar and defiled it, in keeping with the word of Yahweh proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.

17Then he asked, “What is that monument I see?” The men of the city told 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 of Bethel.”

18He said, “Let him rest. No one is to disturb his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

19Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made, provoking Yahweh to anger. He did to them just as he had done at Bethel.

20He sacrificed 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.

21The king commanded all the people, “Celebrate the Passover to Yahweh your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.”

22No Passover like this one had been celebrated 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 in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to Yahweh in Jerusalem.

24Josiah also got rid of the mediums and the spiritists, the household gods, the idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of Yahweh.

25Before him there was no king like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, in keeping with all the law of Moses; and after him no one like him arose.

26Even so, Yahweh did not turn away from the fierceness of his great anger, which burned against Judah because of all the ways Manasseh had provoked him.

27Yahweh said, “I will remove Judah too from my presence, as I removed Israel. I will reject this city that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name will be there.’”

28As for the rest of the deeds 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 toward the king of Assyria, to the Euphrates River. King Josiah went out to meet him, and when Neco saw him, he killed him at Megiddo.

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

31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

32He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, just as his ancestors had done.

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

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

35Jehoiakim paid the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but to pay the silver as Pharaoh demanded, he taxed the land. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from each according to his assessment, to give to Pharaoh Neco.

36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah.

37He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, just as his ancestors had done.