4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeeperso to removep from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incenseq to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.r 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valleys outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powdert and scattered the dust over the gravesu of the common people.v 7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutesw that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

8 Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Gebax to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. 9 Although the priests of the high places did not servey at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

10 He desecrated Topheth,z which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom,a so no one could use it to sacrifice their sonb or daughter in the fire to Molek. 11 He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judahc had dedicated to the sun. They were in the courta near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.d

12 He pulled downe the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the rooff near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courtsg of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.h 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomoni king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestablej god of the people of Ammon.k 14 Josiah smashedl the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.m

15 Even the altarn at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboamo son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. 16 Then Josiahp looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordanceq with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.

17 The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”

The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”

18 “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bonesr.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophets who had come from Samaria.

19 Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the Lord’s anger. 20 Josiah slaughteredt all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bonesu on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passoverv to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”w 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed. 23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.x

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists,y the household gods,z the idols and all the other detestablea things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turnedb to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.c

26 Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger,d which burned against Judah because of all that Manassehe had done to arouse his anger. 27 So the Lord said, “I will removef Judah also from my presenceg as I removed Israel, and I will rejecth Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’b”