2 Kings 23

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1. 1The king sent for all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to gather before him.
2. 2Then the king went up to the LORD's temple, and all the men of Judah, all the people of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone from the least to the greatest came with him. There he read aloud every word of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the LORD's temple.
3. 3The king stood beside the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD — to follow the LORD, to obey his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out everything written in this book. All the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
4. 4Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the objects made for Baal, the grove, and all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.
5. 5He also removed the idolatrous priests that the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6. 6He took the grove out of the house of the LORD, brought it outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron, and burned it there. Then he crushed it into powder and scattered the powder over the graves of the common people.
7. 7He tore down the houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8. 8Josiah brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where they had burned incense, from Geba all the way to Beersheba. He also broke down the high places at the gates — the one at the entrance to the gate of Joshua, the city governor, which stood on a man's left side at the city gate.
9. 9However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened bread among their fellow priests.
10. 10Josiah also desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
11. 11He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. These horses were at the entrance of the house of the LORD, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the outer courts. He also burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12. 12The king smashed the altars on the roof above the upper room of Ahaz, which kings of Judah had built, along with the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the LORD's temple. He demolished them and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.
13. 13The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.
14. 14He smashed the images, cut down the groves, and filled their places with human bones.
15. 15Moreover, he demolished the altar at Bethel and the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into sin, had built. He tore down both the altar and the high place, burned the high place, ground it to powder, and burned the grove.
16. 16When Josiah looked around, he noticed tombs on the hillside. He had the bones taken from those tombs and burned on the altar, desecrating it. This fulfilled the word of the LORD spoken by the man of God, who proclaimed these words.
17. 17Then Josiah asked, "What is that marker I see over there?" The people of the city told him, "That's the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted exactly what you've just done to the altar at Bethel."
18. 18"Leave it alone," Josiah said. "Don't disturb his bones." So they left his bones untouched, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19. 19Josiah also destroyed all the shrines at the high places throughout the cities of Samaria that the kings of Israel had built to provoke the Lord to anger. He did the same things to them that he had done at Bethel.
20. 20He executed all the priests of those high places right there on their own altars and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21. 21The king gave an order to all the people: "Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, exactly as it is written in this Book of the Covenant."
22. 22No Passover like this one had been celebrated since the days of the judges who led Israel — not during the entire era of Israel's kings or Judah's kings.
23. 23But in the 18th year of King Josiah's reign, this Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24. 24Josiah also got rid of the mediums, the spiritists, the household idols, and every other disgusting thing found throughout Judah and Jerusalem. He did this to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the LORD's temple.
25. 25There had never been a king like Josiah before him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength, according to all the law of Moses. And no king after him ever matched him.
26. 26Even so, the LORD did not turn away from his fierce, burning anger against Judah, because of everything Manasseh had done to provoke him.
27. 27The LORD declared, "I will remove Judah from my presence, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city I once chose — Jerusalem — and the temple where I said, 'My name shall be there.'"
28. 28Now the 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?
29. 29During Josiah's reign, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went out to oppose him, and Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.
30. 30Josiah's servants carried his body in a chariot from Megiddo back to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land then chose his son Jehoahaz, anointed him, and made him king in his father's place.
31. 31Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 3 months. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32. 32He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as all his fathers had done.
33. 33Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath to keep him from ruling in Jerusalem, and he imposed a tribute on the land of 100 talents of silver and 1 talent of gold.
34. 34Pharaoh Necho then made Josiah's son Eliakim king in place of his father Josiah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. As for Jehoahaz, Pharaoh took him away to Egypt, where he died.
35. 35Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but to raise the money he taxed the people of the land. He collected the exact amount from each person based on their assessment and handed it over to Pharaoh Necho.
36. 36Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for 11 years. His mother was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37. 37He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, following all that his fathers had done.