2 Kings 23:4–15

⁴Then the king ordered the chief priest Hilkiah, the priests who served under Hilkiah, and the doorkeepers to take out of the Lord’s temple all the utensils that had been made for Baal, Asherah, and the entire army of heaven. Josiah burned the utensils outside Jerusalem in an open field near the Kidron Brook. Then he carried their ashes to Bethel. 

⁵He got rid of the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to sacrifice at the illegal places of worship in the cities of Judah and all around Jerusalem. They had been sacrificing to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the zodiac, and the entire army of heaven. ⁶He took the pole dedicated to the goddess Asherah from the temple to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem. He burned it in the Kidron Valley, ground it to dust, and threw its ashes on the tombs of the common people. ⁷He tore down the houses of the male temple prostitutes who were in the Lord’s temple, where women did weaving for Asherah. 

⁸He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah from Geba to Beersheba and made the places where those priests sacrificed unclean.^bHe tore down the worship site at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the gate named after the mayor of the city. (The worship site was to the left of anyone going through the city gate.) 

⁹The priests of the illegal worship sites had never gone to the Lord’s altar in Jerusalem. Instead, they ate their unleavened bread among the other worshipers. 

¹⁰Josiah also made Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom unclean so that people would never again sacrifice their sons or daughters by burning them to the god Molech. 

¹¹He removed the horses that Judah’s kings had dedicated to the sun god at the entrance of the Lord’s temple. They were in the temple courtyard near the room of the eunuch Nathan Melech. He also burned the chariots of the sun god, ¹²the altars that Judah’s kings had made and placed on the roof of Ahaz’s upstairs room, and the altars Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. The king tore them down from there, crushed them, and dumped their rubble in the Kidron Valley. 

¹³The king made the illegal places of worship east of Jerusalem unclean. They were on the southern part of the Hill of Destruction. King Solomon of Israel had built them for Astarte (the disgusting goddess of the Sidonians), Chemosh (the disgusting god of Moab), and Milcom (the disgusting god of the Ammonites). ¹⁴Josiah crushed the sacred stones, cut down the poles dedicated to Asherah, and filled their places with human bones. ¹⁵He also tore down the altar at Bethel—the place of worship made by Jeroboam (Nebat’s son), who had made Israel sin. He tore down both the altar and the place of worship. They burned the worship site, crushing it to powder and burning the pole dedicated to Asherah.