2 Kings 23

Revised Geneva Translation

23 Then the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem to him.

² And the king went up into the House of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and 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 had been found in the House of the LORD.

³ And the king stood by the pillar and made a Covenant before the LORD, that they would walk after the LORD, and keep His Commandments, and His Testimonies, and His Statutes, with all their heart and with all their soul, so that they might carry out the Words of this Covenant written in this Book. And all the people established the Covenant.

⁴ Then the king commanded Hilkiah the High Priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the Door, to bring all the vessels that were made for Baal (and for the grove and for all the host of heaven) out of the Temple of the LORD. And he burnt them outside Jerusalem, in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes into Bethel.

⁵ And he took down the Chemarim, whom the kings of Judah had made to burn incense in the high places, in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, and also those that burnt incense to Baal (to the Sun and to the Moon and to the planets and to all the host of heaven).

⁶ And he brought out the grove from the Temple of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the valley of Kidron, and burnt it in the valley Kidron and stamped it to powder and cast its dust upon the graves of the children of the people.

⁷ And he broke down the houses of the Sodomites who were in the House of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

⁸ Also, he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and destroyed the high places of the gates that were in the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which was on the left side of the gate of the city.

⁹ Nevertheless, the priests of the high places did not come up to the Altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, except only when they ate of the unleavened bread among their brethren.

¹⁰ He also defiled Topheth, which was in the valley of the children of Hinnom, so that no man would make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

¹¹ He also took down the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the Sun at the entrance of the House of the LORD, by the chamber of Nethan-Melech the eunuch (who was ruler of the suburbs) and burnt the chariots of the Sun with fire,

¹² and the altars that were on the top of the chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made. And the king broke down the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the House of the LORD and quickly went from there and cast the dust of them in the brook Kidron.

¹³ Moreover, the king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, and on the right hand of the Mount of Corruption (which Solomon, the king of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth, the idol of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the idol of the Moabites, and for Milcom, the abomination of the children of Ammon).

¹⁴ And he broke the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

¹⁵ Furthermore, the altar that was at Bethel (the high place made by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin), both this altar and also the high place, he broke down and burnt (the high place). He stamped them to powder and burnt the grove.

¹⁶ And as Josiah turned, he saw the graves that were on the mountain, and sent and took the bones out of the graves and burnt them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the Word of the LORD that the man of God had proclaimed, who cried the same words.

¹⁷ Then he said, “What monument is that which I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the sepulcher of the man of God, who came from Judah and told these things that you have done to the altar of Bethel.”

¹⁸ Then he said, “Let him alone. Let no one remove his bones.” So his bones were saved with the bones of the Prophet who came from Samaria.

¹⁹ Josiah also took away all the houses of the high places which were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to anger the LORD. And he did to them just as he had done in Bethel.

²⁰ And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there upon the altars, and burnt men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ Then the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the Book of this Covenant.”

²² And there was no Passover like that held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Judah.

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

²⁴ Josiah also took away the mediums and the soothsayers and the images and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, to perform the Words of the Law which were written in the Book that Hilkiah the Priest found in the House of the LORD.

²⁵ There was no king like him before, who 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. Nor did there ever arise any like him after.

²⁶ Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which He was angry against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.

²⁷ Therefore the LORD said, “I will also put Judah out of My sight, as I have put away Israel, and will cast off this city, Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the House of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

²⁸ Concerning 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?

²⁹ In his days, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria, to the river Perath. And King Josiah went against him. And when Pharaoh saw him, he killed him at Megiddo.

³⁰ Then his servants carried his body from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own sepulcher. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, and anointed him and made him king in his father’s place.

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

³² And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.

³³ And Pharaoh Necho put him in bonds at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, while he reigned in Jerusalem, and put the land under a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁴ And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim, the son of Josiah, king instead of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away, who when he came to Egypt, died there.

³⁵ And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh and taxed the land to give the money, according to the commandment of Pharaoh. He levied silver and gold to give to Pharaoh Necho, from every man of the people of the land, according to his value.

³⁶ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign. And he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. Also, his mother’s name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

³⁷ And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.