1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders
of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 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.
3 And
the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after
the LORD, 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.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 And
he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by
the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8 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 brake
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.
9 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.
10 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.
11 And
he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the
entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the
chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the
chariots of the sun with fire.
12 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 brake them down
from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
13 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 Zidonians, and for Chemosh the
abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of
Ammon, did the king defile.
14 And
he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places
with the bones of men.
15 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 brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small
to powder, and burned the grove.
16 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.
17 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.
18 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.
19 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.
20 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.
21 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.
22 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;
23 But
in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD
in Jerusalem.
24 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.
25 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.
26 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.
27 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.
28 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?
29 In
his days Pharaohnechoh 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.
30 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.
31 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 Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of
Libnah.
32 And
he did that which was evil
in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
33 And
Pharaohnechoh 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.
34 And
Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his
father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came
to Egypt, and died there.
35 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 every one according to his taxation,
to give it unto
Pharaohnechoh.
36 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 Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of
Rumah.
37 And
he did that which was evil
in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
