2 Kings 23

¹And the king sent them, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

²And the king went up to the house of YHWH, and all the men of Judah, and all those dwelling in Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people from small and to great, and he read in their ears all the words of the Book of the Covenant found in the house of YHWH.

³And the king stood by the pillar, and he cut the covenant before the face of YHWH, to walk after YHWH and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all the heart and with all the soul, to establish the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people stood in the covenant.

⁴And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second rank, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of YHWH all the articles made for the Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

⁵And he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained (and they burned incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem) and those who burned incense to the Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.

⁶And he brought the Asherah pole from the house of YHWH outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, and he burned it in the Kidron Valley, of and he crushed it to a dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the sons of the people.

⁷And he tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of YHWH, where the women had woven houses for the Asherah.

⁸And he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense there, from Geba to Beersheba, and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, that were on the left of a man at the gate of the city.

⁹Only the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of YHWH in Jerusalem, but rather they ate unleavened things in the midst of their brothers.

¹⁰And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of of Ben-hinnom, so that no man could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.

¹¹And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from the entrance to the house of YHWH, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the officer, who was in the parbarim. And the chariots of the sun he burned with the fire.

¹²And the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of YHWH, the king broke down and pulverized them there, and he threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

¹³And the high places that were on the face of Jerusalem, that were on the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled.

¹⁴And he broke in pieces the pillars, and he cut down the Asherah poles, and he filled their places with the bones of men.

¹⁵Moreover the altar that was at Bethel and the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat had made, who had caused caused Israel to sin—both that altar and the high place—he broke down, and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and he burned the Asherah pole.

¹⁶And Josiah turned, and he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and he burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of YHWH that the man of God had proclaimed, who had proclaimed these words.

¹⁷And he said, “What is this monument that I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.”

¹⁸And he said, “Let him alone. Let no man move his bones.” And his bones they let alone with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

¹⁹And also all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke anger, Josiah took away. And he did to them according to all the deeds that he had done in Bethel.

²⁰And he slaughtered all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars, and he burned the bones of man on them. And he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹And the king commanded all the people, saying, “Make a Passover to YHWH your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

²²For it had not been done like this Passover since the days of the judges who judged Israel, and all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.

²³But rather in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was done to YHWH in Jerusalem.

²⁴Moreover, the mediums, and the spiritists, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah put away, that he would cause to stand the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of YHWH.

²⁵And there was none like him before his face, a king who turned to YHWH with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses—and after him not one has arisen like him.

²⁶Nevertheless, YHWH did not turn away from the burning of His great wrath, with which His anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.

²⁷And YHWH said, “Also Judah I will remove from My sight as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

²⁸And the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Words of the Days of the Kings of Judah?

²⁹In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went on account of the king of Assyria to the River Euphrates, and King Josiah went against him. And he killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.

³⁰And his servants moved his body in a chariot from Megiddo, and they brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

³¹Jehoahaz was a son of twenty-three years in his reigning, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.

³²And he did evil in the eyes of YHWH according to all that his fathers had done.

³³And Pharaoh Neco bound him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem. And he imposed a tribute on the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁴And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father, and he turned his name to Jehoiakim. And he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and he died there.

³⁵And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver according to the mouth of Pharaoh. From each man, according to his assessment, he exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

³⁶Jehoiakim was a son of twenty-five years in his reigning, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother was Zebudah daughter of Pedaiah from Rumah.

³⁷And he did evil in the eyes of YHWH, according to all that his fathers had done.