2 Kings 23

The king sent, and they gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him.

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

The king stood by the pillar and cut a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people took a stand in the covenant.

The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second rank and the guards of the threshold to bring out of the Temple of Yahweh all the articles that were made for Baal and for the Asherah and for all the army of heaven, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

He did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense at the shrines in the cities of Judah and in the surrounding area of Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal and to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations and to all the army of heaven.

He brought out the Asherah from the house of Yahweh to the brook Kidron, outside of Jerusalem, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast its dust on the graves of the common people.

He broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes that were in the house of Yahweh where the women had been weaving coverings for the Asherah.

He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the shrines where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Beer-sheba, And he broke down the shrines at the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city that were on a person’s left entering the gate of the city.

However, the priests of the shrines did not come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.

And he defiled Topheth which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

He put an end to the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the room of Nathan-melech the court officer that was in the Temple colonnade, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

The king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper room 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. He hastily removed them from there and cast their dust into the brook Kidron.

The king defiled the shrines that were facing Jerusalem, which were on the south side of the Mountain of Corruption that Solomon the 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 children of Ammon.

And he broke in pieces the standing-stones and cut down the Asherah poles and filled their sites with human bones.

And also the altar that was at Bethel and the shrine that Jeroboam the son of Nebat had made—the man who made Israel sin—he broke down that altar and the shrine and he burned the shrine and beat it to dust and burned the Asherah.

As Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs that were there in the mountain, so he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, in accordance with the word of Yahweh that the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

Then he said, “What is that 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 of Bethel.”

He said, “Let him rest! Let no man move his bones!” So they let his bones be, along with the bones of the prophet who had come out of Samaria.

And also, all the temples at the shrines that were in the cities of Samaria that the kings of Israel had made, making Yahweh angry, Josiah took away and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

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

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

For no Passover such as this had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel; neither in all the days of the kings of Israel nor of the kings of Judah.

But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept in Jerusalem to Yahweh.

And also Josiah eradicated those who inquired of spirits or had familiar spirits, and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to fulfill the words of the law that were written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Yahweh.

And 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 strength in accordance with all the Law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

However, Yahweh did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath; his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had made him angry.

Yahweh said, “I will also remove Judah out of my sight just as I have removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, this city that I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My name will be there.’”

Now 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?

In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to help the king of Assyria at the river Euphrates, but King Josiah went out against him. However, Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.

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

Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, just like all the evil that his fathers had done.

Pharaoh Neco took him prisoner at Riblah in the land of Hamath to keep him from reigning in Jerusalem, and he imposed a fine on the land of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold.

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

And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold as payment to Pharaoh, and at the command of Pharaoh he taxed the land to give the money. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from each person according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

He did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, just like all the evil that his fathers had done.