2 Kings 23

23 ¹Then the king sent word, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ²The king went up to the house of our Father with all Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem—the priests, the prophets, and all the people, least to greatest. In their hearing he read every word of the Book of the Covenant found in the house of our Father. ³The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before our Father: to follow him and keep his commandments, testimonies, and statutes with all his heart and soul, carrying out the covenant words written in this book. And all the people joined the covenant.

⁴The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from our Father's temple all the objects made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the Kidron fields and carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁵He removed the idolatrous priests the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in Judah's cities and around Jerusalem, and those burning incense to Baal, the sun, moon, constellations, and all the host of heaven. ⁶He brought out the Asherah pole from the house of our Father to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, burned it, ground it to dust, and scattered the dust on the graves of common people. ⁷He tore down the male shrine prostitutes' quarters in the house of our Father, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah. ⁸He brought all the priests from Judah's cities and made unclean the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He tore down the high places at the gates—at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the city governor, left of the city gate. ⁹Yet the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of our Father in Jerusalem, though eating bread without yeast among their fellow priests. ¹⁰He made Topheth unclean, in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could pass his son or daughter through the fire to Molech. ¹¹He removed the horses the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of our Father, near the chamber of Nathan-Melech the official in the precincts. He burned the chariots of the sun with fire. ¹²The altars on the roof of Ahaz's upper chamber, which Judah's kings had made, and the altars Manasseh made in the two courts of the house of our Father, the king tore down; he smashed them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley. ¹³The king made unclean the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, detestable idol of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, detestable idol of Moab, and for Milcom, detestable idol of the Ammonites. ^a a v13 The Mount of Corruption was the southern ridge of the Mount of Olives, given this grim name because Solomon had built shrines to foreign gods there. ¹⁴He smashed the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their sites with human bones.

¹⁵Even the Bethel altar—the high place Jeroboam son of Nebat made, who led Israel into sin—that altar and high place he tore down, burned the high place, ground it to dust, and burned the Asherah pole. ¹⁶When Josiah turned and saw the tombs on the hillside, he sent men to take the bones out and burn them on the altar, desecrating it—fulfilling our Father's word that the man of God proclaimed when he predicted these things. ¹⁷He asked, "What monument do I see?" The city's men said, "The tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed against Bethel's altar the very things you did."

¹⁸"Leave it alone," he said. "Let no one move his bones." So they left his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. ¹⁹Josiah also removed all the high-place shrines in the towns of Samaria, which Israel's kings had built to provoke our Father to anger; he did to them as he had done at Bethel. ²⁰He slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars, burned human bones on them, and returned to Jerusalem.

Josiah Restores the Passover

²¹Then the king ordered all the people, "Celebrate the Passover to your Father, as written in this Book of the Covenant." ²²No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor in all the days of Israel's and Judah's kings. ²³But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to our Father in Jerusalem.

²⁴Josiah also removed the mediums, spiritists, household gods, idols, and all the detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem—fulfilling the words of the law written in the book Hilkiah the priest found in the house of our Father. ²⁵No king before or after Josiah turned to our Father like him—with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength, following all the law of Moses. ²⁶Still, our Father did not turn from his great, fierce, burning anger against Judah, because of all Manasseh had done to provoke him.

²⁷For our Father had said, "I will remove Judah from my presence too, as I removed Israel, and reject this city I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name will be there."

²⁸The rest of Josiah's acts, and all he did—are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? ²⁹In his days Pharaoh Necho of Egypt marched up to help Assyria's king at the Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him, but Necho killed him at Megiddo on sight. ³⁰His servants carried his body by chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.

Jehoahaz Reigns and Is Carried Off

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three when he became king, and reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. ³²And he did evil in the sight of our Father, just as his fathers had done. ³³Pharaoh Necho chained him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so he could not reign in Jerusalem, and fined the land about four tons of silver and about seventy-five pounds of gold. ³⁴Pharaoh Necho made Josiah's son Eliakim king in place of his father and renamed him Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. ³⁵Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but taxed the land to meet Pharaoh's demand. He exacted silver and gold from the people of the land, each by his assessment, to give to Pharaoh Necho.

Jehoiakim Reigns in Judah

³⁶Jehoiakim was twenty-five when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah. ³⁷And he did evil in the sight of our Father, just as his fathers had done.