Chapter 23 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah
and of Jerusalem.
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, both small and great.
And he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant, which was found
in the house of the Lord.
And the king stood by a pillar and made a And to 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 this book.
And all the people stood to the covenant.
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 were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the
host of heaven.
And he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the
ashes of them unto Bethel.
And he put down the idolatrous priests, 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, them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun,
and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem,
unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron.
And stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the
graves of the children of the people.
And he broke down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the
Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
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.
Nevertheless, the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the
Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom,
that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to
Molech.
And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the son,
at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan Melik the
chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the son with
fire.
And 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, did the king beat down, and break them down from thence,
and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
And 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 builded for
Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the
abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of
Ammon, did the king defile.
And he break in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their
places with the bones of men.
Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high
place he break down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder,
and burned the grove.
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 proclaimed these words.
Then he said, What title is that that I see?
And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God,
which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against
the altar of Bethel.
And he said, Let him alone, let no man move his bones.
So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of
Samaria, 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.
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.
And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the Lord
your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
Surely there was not holden such a Passover from the days of the judges that
judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of
Judah, but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, wherein this Passover was holden
to the Lord in Jerusalem.
Moreover, the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images,
and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and
in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law
which were written in the book, that Hilkiah the priest found in the house
of the Lord.
And like unto him was there no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his
heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of
Moses.
Neither after him arose there any like him.
Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath,
wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations
that Manasseh had provoked him withal.
And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed
Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen,
and the house of which I said my name shall be there.
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?
In his days Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the
river Euphrates.
And king Josiah went against him, and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had
seen him.
And his servants carried him in a chariot, dead from Megiddo, and brought him to
Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre.
And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him,
and made him king in his father's stead.
Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned
three months in Jerusalem.
And his mother's name was Hermutel, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that
his fathers had done.
And Pharaoh Necho put him in bands at Riblah, in the land of Hamath,
that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and put the land to a tribute of an
hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah, king in the realm of Josiah his
father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away.
And he came to Egypt, and died there.
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give
the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh.
He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of everyone according
to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh Necho.
Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned
eleven years in Jerusalem.
And his mother's name was Zebuda, the daughter of Padua of Ruma.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that
his fathers had done.