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.