2 Kings 23:1-18 ▼

1 And the king sent them, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

2 And the king went up to the house of YHWH, and all the men of Judah, and all those dwelling in Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people from small and to great, and he read in their ears all the words of the Book of the Covenant found in the house of YHWH.

3 And the king stood by the pillar, and he cut the covenant before the face of YHWH, to walk after YHWH and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes with all the heart and with all the soul, to establish the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people stood in the covenant.

4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second rank, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of YHWH all the articles made for the Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.

5 And he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained (and they burned incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem) and those who burned incense to the Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.

6 And he brought the Asherah pole from the house of YHWH outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, and he burned it in the Kidron Valley, of and he crushed it to a dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the sons of the people.

7 And he tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of YHWH, where the women had woven houses for the Asherah.

8 And he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense there, from Geba to Beersheba, and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, that were on the left of a man at the gate of the city.

9 Only the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of YHWH in Jerusalem, but rather they ate unleavened things in the midst of their brothers.

10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of of Ben-hinnom, so that no man could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.

11 And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun from the entrance to the house of YHWH, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the officer, who was in the parbarim. And the chariots of the sun he burned with the fire.

12 And the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of YHWH, the king broke down and pulverized them there, and he threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

13 And the high places that were on the face of Jerusalem, that were on the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled.

14 And he broke in pieces the pillars, and he cut down the Asherah poles, and he filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel and the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat had made, who had caused caused Israel to sin—both that altar and the high place—he broke down, and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and he burned the Asherah pole.

16 And Josiah turned, and he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and he burned them on the altar and defiled it according to the word of YHWH that the man of God had proclaimed, who had proclaimed these words.

17 And he said, “What is this monument that I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.”

18 And he said, “Let him alone. Let no man move his bones.” And his bones they let alone with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.