2 Kings 23

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

² The king went up to the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem went with him, along with the priests, the prophets, and all the people, from the least to the greatest. He read aloud to them all the words of the covenant book that had been found in the house of the LORD.

³ The king stood beside the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD: to follow the LORD and keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his decrees with all his heart and all his soul, carrying out the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second rank, and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the objects made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

⁵ He abolished the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and the areas around Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal, the sun, the moon, the constellations, and the whole host of heaven.

⁶ He brought the Asherah out of the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley. He burned it in the Kidron Valley, ground it to dust, and scattered its dust over the graves of the common people.

⁷ He tore down the houses of the cult prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where women wove coverings for Asherah.

⁸ He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where those priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He tore down the high places at the gates, which stood at the entrance to the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left as one enters the city gate.

⁹ But the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem; they ate unleavened bread among their fellow priests.

¹⁰ He defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

¹¹ He abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the LORD, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the precincts. He burned the chariots of the sun in the fire.

¹² The king tore down the altars on the roof, the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD. He smashed them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

¹³ There were also high places opposite Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction. Solomon king of Israel had built them for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians; for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab; and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. The king defiled them.

¹⁴ He broke the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with human bones.

¹⁵ He also tore down the altar at Bethel—the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat had made, which had led Israel into sin. He tore down that altar and high place, burned the high place, ground it to dust, and burned the Asherah pole.

¹⁶ Josiah turned and saw the tombs there on the mountain. He ordered the bones to be taken from the tombs and burned on the altar, defiling it, in keeping with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.

¹⁷ He asked, “What is that monument I see?” The men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things you have done against the altar at Bethel.”

¹⁸ He said, “Leave him alone; let no one disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹ Josiah also removed all the houses of the high places in the cities of Samaria that the kings of Israel had built to provoke the LORD to anger. He did to them everything he had done at Bethel.

²⁰ He sacrificed all the priests of the high places there on their altars and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king commanded all the people, “Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this covenant book.”

²² A Passover like this had not been celebrated since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor throughout all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.

²³ This Passover to the LORD was celebrated in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of King Josiah.

²⁴ Josiah also got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household idols, the images, and all the detestable things seen in the land of Judah and Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the LORD.

²⁵ Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength, in keeping with the whole Law of Moses; and after him no one like him arose.

²⁶ Yet the LORD did not turn away from the fierce anger of his great wrath, which burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.

²⁷ The LORD said, “I will also remove Judah from before my face, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, ‘My name will be there.’”

²⁸ The rest of Josiah’s acts, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

²⁹ In his days Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went out to meet him, but Neco killed him when he saw him at Megiddo.

³⁰ His servants carried him dead from Megiddo in a chariot, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

³¹ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

³² He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as all his fathers had done.

³³ Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he could not reign in Jerusalem. He imposed on the land a levy of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.

³⁴ Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz away; he went to Egypt and died there.

³⁵ Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he assessed the land to collect the silver according to Pharaoh’s order. He collected the silver and gold from the people of the land, from each person according to his assessment, to give to Pharaoh Neco.

³⁶ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah.

³⁷ He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as all his fathers had done.

Read and listen to this chapter in the Shalem app, free: narration, chapter video and reading progress. Get the app