2 Kings 23

Josiah’s Covenant and Reform

1Then the king sent word, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered before him. 2The king went up to the house of Yahweh, with all the men of Judah and all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, all the people from the least to the greatest, and he read aloud to them the whole Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh. 3The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before Yahweh, to follow Yahweh and keep his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of this covenant written in this scroll. And all the people entered into the covenant. 4Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of Yahweh all the articles made for Baal, for Asherah, and for the whole host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5He did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the towns of Judah and around Jerusalem — those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to the whole host of heaven. 6He brought the Asherah pole out of the house of Yahweh to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the powder over the graves of the common people. 7He tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of Yahweh, where women wove hangings for Asherah. 8He brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and defiled the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where they had burned incense; he tore down the high places at the gates — the one at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, governor of the city, on the left as one enters the city gate. 9The priests of the high places, however, did not come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, though they ate unleavened bread among their fellow priests. 10He defiled Topheth, in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, so that no one could make a son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech. 11He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of Yahweh, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the eunuch, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun. 12The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had built on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the house of Yahweh; he smashed them there and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13The king also defiled the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the detestable idol of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the detestable idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. 14He broke the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their sites with human bones.

Josiah Purges Bethel

15He also tore down the altar at Bethel — the high place Jeroboam son of Nebat had built, the one that had led Israel into sin. He demolished that altar and the high place, burned the high place, ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole. 16As Josiah turned and saw the tombs there on the hillside, he sent men to take the bones out of the tombs and burn them on the altar, defiling it, in keeping with the word of Yahweh proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these very things. 17Then he asked, “What is that monument I see?” The men of the city told him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed the very things you have done against the altar of Bethel.” 18He said, “Leave it alone; let no one disturb his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria. 19Josiah also removed all the shrines of the high places in the towns of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had built and that had provoked Yahweh to anger; he did to them exactly as he had done at Bethel. 20He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Josiah’s Passover

21The king commanded all the people, “Celebrate the Passover to Yahweh your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor throughout all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. 23But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, this Passover was kept to Yahweh in Jerusalem. 24Josiah also got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols, and all the detestable things seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so as to fulfill the words of the law written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of Yahweh. 25There was no king before him like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength, in keeping with the whole Law of Moses; nor did any king like him arise after him. 26Yet Yahweh did not turn away from the heat of his great anger, which burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. 27So Yahweh said, “I will remove Judah too from my presence, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city, Jerusalem, which I chose, and this house, of which I said, My name will be there.”

The Death of Josiah

28As for the rest of the acts of Josiah — all that he did — are they not written in the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 29In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched up to the Euphrates to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah went out to confront him, but Necho killed him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him. 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 his father’s place.

Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim

31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32He did what was evil in Yahweh’s eyes, just as his fathers had done. 33Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, to keep him from reigning in Jerusalem, and imposed on the land a fine of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz away to Egypt, where he died. 35Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the silver and gold, but he taxed the land to meet Pharaoh’s demand; he exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Necho. 36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah, daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 37He did what was evil in Yahweh’s eyes, just as his fathers had done.