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The Book of 2 Kings

2 Kings Chapter 23

  

Josiah Renews the Covenant

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the king summoned to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.  2  Then the king went up to the House of the Lord, together with the men of Judah, all the people of Jerusalem, and the priests and prophetsall the people young and old, from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the House of the Lord.  3  The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant in the presence of the Lordthat he, the king, with all his heart and soul would follow the Lord, and keep the Lord’s commandments, decrees, and statutes, and so fulfil all the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people also made a pledge to keep the covenant.

Josiah’s Reforms

4 The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers to remove from the Temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal, and Asherah, and all the starry hosts of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took their ashes to Bethel.  5  He also did away with the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and on those around Jerusalem. They had burned incense to Baal, and to the sun and moon, and to the constellations, and to all the starry hosts of heaven.  6  He took out the Asherah pole from the House of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem. He burned it in the Kidron Valley and ground it to powder; then he scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.  7  He also tore down the cubicles of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the House of the Lord at the place where the women wove tapestries for Asherah.

8 Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defiled the high places from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He also demolished the high places at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city governor, which were to the left of the city gate.  9  The priests of the high places, however, did not travel to the altar of the Lord up in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

10  He defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one could consign his son or his daughter to pass through the fire of Molech.  11  He removed from the entrance to the House of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They had been located by the chamber of the Nathan-melech the court official. Josiah then had the chariots of the sun burnt.

12  The king tore down the altars erected by the kings of Judah on the roof by the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord. He had the altars broken down from there and smashed in pieces, and the rubble was thrown into the Kidron Valley.  13  The king also defiled the high places facing Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth, the vile goddess of the Sidonians; for Chemosh, the vile god of Moab; and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.  14  He broke the sacred pillars in pieces and cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.

15  He even tore down the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin. Then he burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole.  16  As Josiah looked around, he saw the tombs there on the mountain. So he had the bones removed from the tombs and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.

17  Then the king said, “What is that monument I see?”

The men of the city told him, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar at Bethel the very things you have seen done to it.”

18  So he said, “Let him rest. Let no one disturb his bones.” So they left his bones alone, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

19  Josiah also removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made that had provoked the Lord to anger. He dealt with them just as he had done at Bethel.  20  Josiah also 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.

The Passover Celebrated

21  The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”  22  No such Passover had been held since the time of the judges who judged Israel, nor throughout the times of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.  23  But in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Josiah, this Passover was held before the Lord in Jerusalem.

24  Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums, the spiritists, the household gods, the idols, and all the other detestable things seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this in order to fulfil the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the House of the Lord.  25  There was no king like Josiah before or after him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, in accordance with all the law of Moses.

26  Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the fierceness of His great wrath and anger, which burned against Judah, because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke Him to wrath.  27  For the Lord had said, “I will remove Judah from My sight as I have removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and the temple about which I said, ‘My Name will abide there’.”

The Death of Josiah

28  As for the other events of the reign of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written about in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

29  During the reign of Josiah, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched against the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went up to meet him in battle, but Pharaoh Neco faced off against Josiah and killed him at Megiddo .  30  So Josiah’s servants brought his dead body in a chariot to Jerusalem from Megiddo, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, and they anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

Jehoahaz King of Judah

31  Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.  32  He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his fathers had done.  33  Pharaoh Neco captured him and put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem. Then Neco imposed against Judah the penalty of a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.  34  Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz to Egypt, and he died there.  35  Jehoiakim gave Pharaoh the silver and the gold, and he taxed the land to pay what Pharaoh demanded. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, according to each man’s assessment, and gave it to Pharaoh Neco.

Jehoiakim King of Judah

36  Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah.  37  He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as his fathers had done.