2 Kings 23

1 And the king sent and gathered to himself all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. [a] 2 And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and every man of Judah and all who lived in Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people from the least to the greatest; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. 3 And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord — to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commands and his witnesses and his rules with all the heart and with all the soul, and to make the words of this covenant stand, the words written in this book. And all the people stood in the covenant.

4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second rank, and the keepers of the door, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the sacred grove, and for all the army of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and took their dust to Bethel. [b] 5 And he put a stop to the idol-priests, whom the kings of Judah had appointed — and they had been burning incense on the high places, and in the cities of Judah, and all around Jerusalem — and to those who burned incense to Baal, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the army of heaven. [c] 6 And he carried the sacred grove out of the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the burial place of the sons of the people.

7 And he pulled down the house of the set-apart men that stood in the house of the Lord, where the women were weaving hangings for the sacred grove. [e] 8 And he brought up all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where those priests had burned incense, from Geba as far as Beersheba. And he pulled down the house of the gates that stood by the door of the gate of Joshua the ruler of the city — on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city. [f] 9 Only, the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem; they only ate bread without yeast among their brothers. [g]

10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the ravine of the son of Hinnom — the place for a man to pass his son, and a man his daughter, through fire to Molech. [h] 11 And he put a stop to the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord, by the treasury of Nathan, the king’s eunuch, in the precincts; and he burned the chariot of the sun with fire. [i]

12 And the 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 courts of the house of the Lord — these the king pulled down and tore out from there, and he threw their dust into the brook Kidron. 13 And the house that stood in front of Jerusalem, on the right of the mount of Mosoath, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtaroth the loathsome thing of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the loathsome thing of Moab, and for Milcom the detestable thing of the sons of Ammon — that house the king defiled. [j] 14 And he broke the pillars in pieces, and destroyed the sacred groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

15 And also the altar that was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam son of Nebat made, who made Israel sin — that altar too, and the high place, he tore down; and he broke its stones in pieces and ground them to dust, and burned the sacred grove. 16 And Josiah turned aside and saw the tombs that were there in the city, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God spoke when Jeroboam stood at the altar at the feast. And he turned and lifted his eyes to the tomb of the man of God who had spoken these words,

17 and he said, “What is that marker that I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the man of God who came out of Judah and called out these words, which he called out against the altar at Bethel.” [k] 18 And he said, “Let it be. Let no man disturb his bones.” So his bones were spared, along with the bones of the prophet who had come out of Samaria.

19 And also all the houses of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger — Josiah removed them, and did to them everything he had done at Bethel. 20 And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned the bones of men on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.

21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the Lord our God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.” [l] 22 For this Passover had not been kept from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah; 23 but only in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this Passover kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.

24 And also those who consult the dead, and those who know secrets, and the household figures, and the idols, and all the loathsome things that had sprung up in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem — Josiah the king removed them, so as to make the words of the law stand, the words written in the book which Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. [m] 25 There was no king like him before him, who turned to the Lord with his whole heart and with his whole soul and with his whole strength, according to all the law of Moses; and after him none rose like him.

26 Only, the Lord did not turn back from the heat of his great anger, with which his anger burned against Judah, because of the provocations with which Manasseh provoked him. 27 And the Lord said, “Judah too I will remove from before my face, as I removed Israel; and I will thrust away this city which I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name will be there.’” 28 And the rest of the acts of Josiah, and everything he did — are they not written in the book of the daily record of the kings of Judah?

29 And in his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up against the king of the Assyrians, to the river Euphrates; and Josiah went out to meet him, and Neco put him to death at Megiddo when he saw him. 30 And his servants carried him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb in the city of David. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father. [n]

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. [o] 32 And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to everything his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco moved him to Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he would not reign in Jerusalem; and he laid a fine on the land — 7,500 pounds of silver and 7,500 pounds of gold. [p]

34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim, son of Josiah king of Judah, king over them in place of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And he took Jehoahaz and brought him into Egypt, and he died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; only, he put the land under assessment to give the silver at the mouth of Pharaoh. Each man according to his assessment, they gave the silver and the gold, along with the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Neco.

36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jeldaph, daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. [q] 37 And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to everything his fathers had done.