2 Kings 23–24

Josiah Does Away with Pagan Worship

23King Josiah summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, ²and together they went to the Temple, accompanied by the priests and the prophets and all the rest of the people, rich and poor alike. Before them all, the king read aloud the whole book of the covenant which had been found in the Temple. ³He stood by the royal column and made a covenant with the Lord to obey him, to keep his laws and commands with all his heart and soul, and to put into practice the demands attached to the covenant, as written in the book. And all the people promised to keep the covenant.

^4*Then Josiah ordered the High Priest Hilkiah, his assistant priests, and the guards on duty at the entrance to the Temple to bring out of the Temple all the objects used in the worship of Baal, of the goddess Asherah, and of the stars. The king burnt all these objects outside the city near the valley of the Kidron, and then had the ashes taken to Bethel. ^5*He removed from office the priests that the kings of Judah had ordained to offer sacrifices^a on the pagan altars in the cities of Judah and in places near Jerusalem—all the priests who offered sacrifices to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. ^6*He removed from the Temple the symbol of the goddess Asherah, took it out of the city to the valley of the Kidron, burnt it, pounded its ashes to dust, and scattered it over the public burial ground. ⁷He destroyed the living quarters in the Temple occupied by the temple prostitutes.^b (It was there that women wove robes used in the worship of Asherah.) ⁸He brought to Jerusalem the priests who were in the cities of Judah, and throughout the whole country he desecrated the altars where they had offered sacrifices. He also tore down the altars dedicated to the goat-demons near the gate built by Joshua, the city governor, which was to the left of the main gate as one enters the city. ⁹Those priests were not allowed to serve in the Temple, but they could eat the unleavened bread provided for their fellow-priests.

^10*King Josiah also desecrated Topheth, the pagan place of worship in the Valley of Hinnom, so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter as a burnt offering to the god Molech. ¹¹He also removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the worship of the sun, and he burnt the chariots used in this worship. (These were kept in the temple courtyard, near the gate and not far from the living quarters of Nathan Melech, a high official.) ^12*The altars which the kings of Judah had built on the palace roof above King Ahaz’ quarters, King Josiah tore down, along with the altars put up by King Manasseh in the two courtyards of the Temple; he smashed the altars to bits^c and threw them into the valley of the Kidron. ^13*Josiah desecrated the altars that King Solomon had built east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Olives,^d for the worship of disgusting idols—Astarte the goddess of Sidon, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Molech the god of Ammon. ¹⁴King Josiah broke the stone pillars to pieces, cut down the symbols of the goddess Asherah, and the ground where they had stood he covered with human bones.

^15*Josiah also tore down the place of worship in Bethel which had been built by King Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into sin. Josiah pulled down the altar, broke its stones into pieces,^e and pounded them to dust; he also burnt the image of Asherah. ^16*Then Josiah looked round and saw some tombs there on the hill; he had the bones taken out of them and burnt on the altar. In this way he desecrated the altar, doing what the prophet had predicted long before during the festival as King Jeroboam was standing by the altar. King Josiah looked round and saw the tomb of the prophet^f who had made this prediction. ^17*“Whose tomb is that?” he asked.

The people of Bethel answered, “It is the tomb of the prophet who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done to this altar.”

¹⁸“Leave it as it is,” Josiah ordered. “His bones are not to be moved.”

So his bones were not moved, neither were those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹In every city of Israel King Josiah tore down all the pagan places of worship which had been built by the kings of Israel, who thereby aroused the Lord’s anger. He did to all those altars what he had done in Bethel. ²⁰He killed all the pagan priests on the altars where they served, and he burnt human bones on every altar. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Josiah Celebrates the Passover

²¹King Josiah ordered the people to celebrate the Passover in honour of the Lord their God, as written in the book of the covenant. ²²No Passover like this one had ever been celebrated by any of the kings of Israel or of Judah, since the time when judges ruled the nation. ²³Now at last, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, the Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem.

Other Changes Made by Josiah

²⁴In order to enforce the laws written in the book that the High Priest Hilkiah had found in the Temple, King Josiah removed from Jerusalem and the rest of Judah all the mediums and fortune tellers, and all the household gods, idols, and all other pagan objects of worship. ²⁵There had never been a king like him before, who served the Lord with all his heart, mind, and strength, obeying all the Law of Moses; nor has there been a king like him since.

²⁶But the Lord’s fierce anger had been aroused against Judah by what King Manasseh had done, and even now it did not die down. ²⁷The Lord said, “I will do to Judah what I have done to Israel: I will banish the people of Judah from my sight, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and the Temple, the place I said was where I should be worshipped.”

The End of Josiah’s Reign

²⁸Everything else that King Josiah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ²⁹While Josiah was king, King Neco of Egypt led an army to the River Euphrates to help the emperor of Assyria. King Josiah tried to stop the Egyptian army at Megiddo and was killed in battle. ³⁰His officials placed his body in a chariot and took it back to Jerusalem, where he was buried in the royal tombs.

The people of Judah chose Josiah’s son Joahaz and anointed him king.

King Joahaz of Judah

³¹Joahaz was 23 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah from the city of Libnah. ³²Following the example of his ancestors, he sinned against the Lord. ³³His reign ended when King Neco of Egypt took him prisoner in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, and made Judah pay 3,400 kilogrammes of silver and 34 kilogrammes of gold as tribute. ^34*King Neco made Josiah’s son Eliakim king of Judah as successor to Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Joahaz was taken to Egypt by King Neco, and there he died.

King Jehoiakim of Judah

³⁵King Jehoiakim collected a tax from the people in proportion to their wealth, in order to raise the amount needed to pay the tribute demanded by the king of Egypt.

^36*Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother was Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah from the town of Rumah. ³⁷Following the example of his ancestors, Jehoiakim sinned against the Lord.

24^*While Jehoiakim was king, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah, and for three years Jehoiakim was forced to submit to his rule; then he rebelled. ²The Lord sent armed bands of Babylonians, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against Jehoiakim to destroy Judah, as the Lord had said through his servants the prophets that he would do. ³This happened at the Lord’s command, in order to banish the people of Judah from his sight because of all the sins that King Manasseh had committed, ⁴and especially because of all the innocent people he had killed. The Lord could not forgive Manasseh for that.

⁵Everything else that Jehoiakim did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ⁶Jehoiakim died, and his son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

⁷The king of Egypt and his army never marched out of Egypt again, because the king of Babylonia now controlled all the territory that had belonged to Egypt, from the River Euphrates to the northern border of Egypt.

King Jehoiachin of Judah

⁸Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem. ⁹Following the example of his father, Jehoiachin sinned against the Lord.

¹⁰It was during his reign that the Babylonian army, commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar’s officers, marched against Jerusalem and besieged it. ¹¹During the siege Nebuchadnezzar himself came to Jerusalem, ^12*and King Jehoiachin, along with his mother, his sons, his officers, and the palace officials, surrendered to the Babylonians. In the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign he took Jehoiachin prisoner ¹³and carried off to Babylon all the treasures in the Temple and the palace. As the Lord had foretold, Nebuchadnezzar broke up all the gold utensils which King Solomon had made for use in the Temple. ¹⁴Nebuchadnezzar carried away as prisoners the people of Jerusalem, all the royal princes, and all the leading men, 10,000 in all. He also deported all the skilled workmen, including the blacksmiths, leaving only the poorest of the people behind in Judah.

^15*Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylon as a prisoner, together with Jehoiachin’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of Judah. ¹⁶Nebuchadnezzar deported all the important men to Babylonia, 7,000 in all, and 1,000 skilled workers, including the blacksmiths, all of them able-bodied men fit for military duty.

^17*Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah king of Judah and changed his name to Zedekiah.

King Zedekiah of Judah

^18*Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter…