2 Kings 23

And the king sent, and they gathered to him all of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

And the king went up {to} the house of God, and every man of Judah and all of the dwellers of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets, and all of the people from small and to great. And he read in their ears all of the words of the scroll of the covenant having been found in the house of God. \*

And the king stood by the pillar, and he cut a covenant to the face of God to walk after God and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all of the heart and with all of the soul, to raise up the words of this covenant written on that scroll. And all of the people stood in the covenant. \*

And the king commanded Hilkiah the great priest and the priests of the second rank and the keepers of the threshold to bring out from the temple of God all of the vessels having been made for Baal and for Asherah and for the whole army of the heavens. And he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and he brought their ashes {to} Bethel.

And he made cease the idol-priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed that one should burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah and the environs of Jerusalem and the ones burning incense to Baal, to the sun and to the moon and to the constellations and to the whole army of the heavens. \*

And he brought out the Asherah from the house of God to outside of Jerusalem, to the Valley of Kidron, and he burned it in the Valley of Kidron. And he crushed {it} to dust, and he threw its dust over the grave of the sons of the people.

And he tore down the houses of the cultic prostitutes that {were} by the house of God, where women were weaving houses there for Asherah. \*

And he brought all of the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense there, from Geba to Beersheba. And he tore down the high places of the gates that {were at} the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the commander of the city, which {was} on the left of a man at the gate of the city.

(However, the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of God in Jerusalem. Rather, they ate unleavened bread in the midst of their brothers.) \*

And he defiled Topheth, which {was} in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that a man could not make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from the entrance of the house of God, by the chamber of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which {was} in the precincts. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. \*

And the king tore down the altars that {were} on the roof, the upper chamber of Ahaz, that the kings of Judah had made and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of God. And he ran from there and threw their dust into the Valley of Kidron.

And the king defiled the high places that {were} on the face of Jerusalem, which {were} on the right of the Mount of Destruction, which Solomon, the king of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the sons of Ammon.

And he shattered the pillars, and he cut down the Asherahs, and he filled their place with bones of man. \*

And also the altar that {was} in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, made, who caused Israel to sin, both that altar and the high place, he tore down, and he burned the high place. He crushed {them} to dust, and he burned the Asherah.

And Josiah turned and saw the graves that {were} there on the mountain, and he sent and took bones from the graves and burned {them} on the altar. So he defiled it, according to the word of God that the man of God proclaimed who had proclaimed these things. \*

And he said, “What {is} this monument that I am seeing?” And the men of the city said to him, “The grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.”

And he said, “Let him stay. Let not a man disturb his bones.” And they rescued his bones, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. \*

And Josiah also removed all of the houses of the high places that {were} in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made, provoking anger. And he did to them like all of the works that he had done in Bethel.

And he sacrificed on the altars all of the priests of the high places who {were} there, and he burned bones of man on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem. \*

And the king commanded all of the people, saying, “Do Passover for God your God, as written in this scroll of the covenant.”

Now like this Passover was not done from the days of the judges who judged Israel or all of the days of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah,

except in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was done for God in Jerusalem. \*

And Josiah also removed the ritual pits and the familiar spirits and the teraphim and the idols and all of the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to raise up the words of the Law written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of God.

And to his face a king was not like him, who returned to God with all of his heart and with all of his soul and with all of his strength, according to all of the Law of Moses. And after him, one has not arisen like him. \*

However, God did not turn from the great burning of his nose {with} which his nose burned against Judah because of all of the provocations {by} which Manasseh had provoked him.

And God had said, “I will also remove Judah away from my face, just as I removed Israel. And I will reject this city that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house {about} which I said, ‘My name will be there.’” \*

Now the rest of the matters of Josiah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the matters of the days of the kings of Judah?

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

And his servants caused him to ride dead from Megiddo and brought him {to} Jerusalem. And they buried him in his grave. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and they anointed him and made him king in place of his father. \*

Jehoahaz {was} a son of 23 years when he reigned, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother {was} Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

And he did evil in the eyes of God, like all that his fathers had done.

And Pharaoh Neco bound him in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, from reigning in Jerusalem. And he imposed tribute on the land, 100 kikkars of silver and a kikkar of gold. \*

And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, reign in place of Josiah his father, and he changed his name {to} Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz, and he came {to} Egypt, and he died there.

And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he assessed the land to give the silver according to the mouth of Pharoah. {From} a man according to his assessment, he exacted the silver and the gold {from} the people of the land to give to Pharoah Neco. \*

Jehoiakim {was} a son of 25 years when he reigned, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. And the name of his mother {was} Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah.

And he did evil in the eyes of God, like all that his fathers had done. \*