That were in the cities of Samaria - Israel had now no king; and Josiah, of the blood royal of Judah, had certainly a direct right to the kingdom; he had, at this time, an especial commission from God, to reform every abuse through the whole land - all that ground that was given by the Lord as an inheritance to the twelve sons of Jacob. Therefore he had every right to carry his plans of reformation into the Samaritan states.

the houses.

2 Kings 17:9 And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God...

1 Kings 12:31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.

1 Kings 13:32 For the saying which he cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel...

the cities.

2 Chronicles 30:6-11 So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah...

2 Chronicles 31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the images in pieces...

2 Chronicles 34:6,7 And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even to Naphtali, with their mattocks round about...

the kings.

2 Kings 8:18 And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife...

1 Kings 16:33 And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

Micah 6:16 For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels...

to provoke the Lord.

2 Kings 17:16-18 And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove...

2 Kings 21:6 And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards...

Psalm 78:58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

Jeremiah 7:18,19 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven...

Ezekiel 8:17,18 Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man...

Whether Prophets Always Know the Things which they Prophesy?
Objection 1: It would seem that the prophets always know the things which they prophesy. For, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 9), "those to whom signs were shown in spirit by means of the likenesses of bodily things, had not the gift of prophecy, unless the mind was brought into action, so that those signs were also understood by them." Now what is understood cannot be unknown. Therefore the prophet is not ignorant of what he prophesies. Objection 2: Further, the light of prophecy surpasses …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

The Whole Heart
LET me give the principal passages in which the words "the whole heart," "all the heart," are used. A careful study of them will show how wholehearted love and service is what God has always asked, because He can, in the very nature of things, ask nothing less. The prayerful and believing acceptance of the words will waken the assurance that such wholehearted love and service is exactly the blessing the New Covenant was meant to make possible. That assurance will prepare us for turning to the Omnipotence …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

The Medes and the Second Chaldaean Empire
THE FALL OF NINEVEH AND THE RISE OF THE CHALDAEAN AND MEDIAN EMPIRES--THE XXVIth EGYPTIAN DYNASTY: CYAXARES, ALYATTES, AND NEBUCHADREZZAR. The legendary history of the kings of Media and the first contact of the Medes with the Assyrians: the alleged Iranian migrations of the Avesta--Media-proper, its fauna and flora; Phraortes and the beginning of the Median empire--Persia proper and the Persians; conquest of Persia by the Medes--The last monuments of Assur-bani-pal: the library of Kouyunjik--Phraortes …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 8