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.