1
And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2
And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, from the smallest to the greatest; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the LORD.
3
And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, that they would walk after the LORD and keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all
their heart and all
their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in that book. And all the people confirmed the covenant.
4
And the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest, and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that had been made for Baal and for the grove and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and caused their dust to be carried unto Bethel.
5
And he put down the religious
persons whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places round about Jerusalem; likewise, those that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6
And he brought out the
graven image of the grove from the house of the LORD outside Jerusalem unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and stamped
it small to powder and cast the powder of it upon the graves of the sons of the people.
7
He likewise broke down the houses of the male
cult prostitutes that
were by the house of the LORD where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8
And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and broke down the high places of the gates that
were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which
were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city.
9
Nevertheless, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
10
And he defiled Tophet, which
is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
11
And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech, the chamberlain who
was in charge of the Parbar, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12
And the king cast down the altars that
were on the top of the upper chamber 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 and made haste and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
13
Likewise, the king defiled the high places that
were before Jerusalem, which
were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon, the king of Israel, had built unto Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians, and unto Chemosh, the abomination of the Moabites, and unto Milcom, the abomination of the sons of Ammon.
14
And he broke the images in pieces and cut down the groves and filled their places with the bones of men.
15
Likewise, the altar that
was at Bethel
and the high place which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made: both that altar and the high place he broke down and burned the high place
and stamped
it small to powder and burned the grove.
16
And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that
were there in the mount and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres and burned
them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who had proclaimed these words.
17
Then he said, What title
is this that I see? And the men of the city told him,
It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.
18
And he said, Let him alone; let no one move his bones. So his bones were saved along with the bones of the prophet that had come out of Samaria.
19
And all the houses also 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 took away and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.
20
And he slew all the priests of the high places that
were there upon the altars and burned men’s bones upon them and returned to Jerusalem.
21
Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Make the passover unto the LORD your God, as
it is written in the book of this covenant.
22
Such a passover had not been made since the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah.
23
In the year eighteen of King Josiah, this passover was made unto the LORD in Jerusalem.
24
In the same manner Josiah burned the spiritists, the diviners, the teraphim, the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.
25
There was no king before him that converted
like this to the LORD with all his heart and all his soul and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither did any like him arise after him.
26
Even with all this the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him to wrath.
27
And the LORD said, I must also remove Judah out of my sight as I have removed Israel, and I must reject this city Jerusalem which I had chosen and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.
28
Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and all that he did,
are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
29
In his days Pharaohnechoh, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him; but as soon as he saw him, he slew him at Megiddo.
30
And his slaves carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own sepulchre. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him and made him king in his father’s stead.
31
Jehoahaz
was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name
was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32
And he did
that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
33
And Pharaohnechoh put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, as he was reigning in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
34
Then Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king in the place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim and took Jehoahaz and carried him to Egypt, and he died there.
35
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he caused the land to be valued to give
this money according to the commandment of Pharaoh; he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of each one according to the estimation of
his worth, to give
it unto Pharaohnechoh.
36
Jehoiakim
was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name
was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37
And he did
that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.