2 Kings 23:4–15

⁴Then the king^d commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the second priests, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of Yahweh all of the objects made for Baal and for the Asherah and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and then he carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁵He removed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem and who offered incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. ⁶He brought out the Asherah image from the temple of Yahweh outside of Jerusalem to the Wadi^e Kidron and burnt it at the Wadi Kidron; then he pulverized it to dust and threw its dust upon the tombs^f of the common people.^{g 7}He tore down the shrines of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of Yahweh, where the women were weaving shrines for the Asherah. ⁸Then he brought all of the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests from Geba up to Beersheba burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on the left of each gate of the city. ⁹However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread in the midst of their relatives. ¹⁰He defiled the Topheth which is in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to prevent^h anyone causing his sons or his daughters to pass through the fire for Molech. ¹¹He kept the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from coming to the temple of Yahweh at the side room of Nathan-Melech the eunuch, which was in the court; and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire. ¹²The altars that were on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the temple of Yahweh, the king tore down and ran from there and threw their ashes into the Wadi Kidron. ¹³The high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south of the Mountain of Destruction which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Milcom the detestable thing of the Ammonites,ⁱ the king defiled. ¹⁴He also broke into pieces the stone pillars and cut down the Asherah poles and covered their sites with human bones.

¹⁵Moreover, the altar that was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, had built, even that altar and the high place, Josiah tore down. Then he burned down the high place and crushed the pole of Asherah worship to dust and burned it with fire.