2 Kings 23:21-37 ▼

21 Then the king commanded all the people saying, “Celebrate the Passover to Yahweh your God as it is written in this book of the covenant.”

22 For such a Passover had not been celebrated from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah.

23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to Yahweh in Jerusalem.

24 Moreover, the mediums and the spiritists and the teraphim and the idols and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah purged in order that he might establish the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Yahweh.

25 And before him there was no king like him who turned to Yahweh with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.

26 However, Yahweh did not turn from His great burning anger, His anger which burned against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him to anger.

27 And Yahweh said, “I will remove Judah also from My presence, as I have removed Israel. And I will reject Jerusalem, this city 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 Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. And King Josiah went to meet him, and when Pharaoh Neco saw him he put him to death at Megiddo.

30 And his servants drove his body in a chariot from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

32 And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.

33 And Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a fine of one hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.

34 Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt, and he died there.

35 So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to give the money at the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his valuation, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.

36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

37 And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.