2 Kings 23
1 2
3 4 5
6 7 8
9 10 11
12 13 14
15 16 17
18 19 20
21 22 23
24 25
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.
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