2 Kings 23

And ^athe king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. ²And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and ^bhe read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant ^cwhich was found in the house of the Lord. ³And the king stood by ^da pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, ^eto walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant. ⁴And the king commanded Hilkiah ^fthe high priest, and the priests ^gof the second order; and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for ^hBaal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burnt them without Jerusalem in the fields of ⁱKidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. ⁵And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burnt incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to ^jall the host of heaven. ⁶And he brought out the ^kgrove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the ⁱbrook Kidron, and burnt it at the brook Kidron, and ^lstampt it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof ^mupon the graves of the children of the people. ⁷And he brake down the houses of ⁿthe sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, ^owhere the women wove hangings for the grove. ⁸And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense, from ^pGeba to ^qBeer-sheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. ^9rNevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren. ¹⁰And he defiled ^sTopheth, which is in ^tthe valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man ^umight make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to ^wMolech. ¹¹And he ^xtook away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the ^ychamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the ^zsuburbs, and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹²And the altars that were ^aon the top of the ^bupper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which ^cManasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into ^dthe brook Kidron. ¹³And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for ^eAshtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for ^fChemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for ^eMilcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. ¹⁴And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

¹⁵Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place ^gwhich Jeroboam the son of Nebat, ^hwho made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burnt the high place, and stampt it small to powder, and burnt the grove. ¹⁶And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar, and polluted it, ⁱaccording to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. ¹⁷Then he said, What ^ktitle is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is ^lthe sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el. ¹⁸And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones ^mof the prophet that came out of Samaria. ¹⁹And all the houses also of the high places that were ⁿin the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el. ²⁰And he ^oslew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and ^pburnt men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

²¹And the king commanded all the people, saying, ^qKeep the passover unto the Lord your God, ^ras it is written in ^sthe book of this covenant. ^22tSurely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; ²³but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. ²⁴Moreover the ^uworkers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and ^xthe idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform ^ythe words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. ^25zAnd like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and ^awith all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. ²⁶Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, ^bbecause of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal. ²⁷And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as ^cI have removed Israel, and ^dwill cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and ^ethe house of which I said, My name shall be there. 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? ^29fIn his days ^gPharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at ^hMegiddo, when he ⁱhad seen him. ^30kAnd his servants carried him in a chariot ^ldead from ^hMegiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And ^mthe people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was ⁿHamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of ^oLibnah. ³²And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. ³³And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at ^pRiblah in the land of ^qHamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of ^ran hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. ³⁴And Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and ^sturned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came ^tto Egypt, and died there. ³⁵And Jehoiakim gave ^uthe silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he ^xtaxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-nechoh.

^36yJehoiakim was twenty and five year old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of ^zRumah. ^37aAnd he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

XXIV.