2 Kings 23:4-20 ▼

4 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the doors to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal and for the idols and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Beth-el.

5 And he slew the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places round about Jerusalem, and those also who burned incense to 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 idol from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron and burned it at the brook Kidron, and ground it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people.

7 And he destroyed the houses of the Sodomites which were in the house of the LORD, and the houses of the women who wove hangings for the idols.

8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense in them, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and destroyed the shrine which was at the entrance of the gate of Salvation which was on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.

9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread with their brethren.

10 And he destroyed the high places which the kings of Judah had made in Taphath, which is in the valley of Bar-hannom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Amlech.

11 And he slew the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan the king's eunuch, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariot of the sun with fire.

12 And the altar that was 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 broke 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 built for Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh, the idol of Moab, and for Malcom, the idol of the children of Ammon, did King Josiah destroy.

14 And he broke in pieces the images and cut down the idols and filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el and the high places which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he demolished, and burned the high place and ground it to dust and burned the idols.

16 And as Josiah returned, he saw the sepulchres that were there on the mount, and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres and burned them upon the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD which the prophet of God proclaimed, who predicted these things.

17 Then the king said, What monument is that which I see? And the men of the city said to him, It is the sepulchre of the prophet of God, who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Beth-el.

18 And he said, Let him alone; let no man touch his sepulchre, and let no man move his bones, so the bones of the prophet of God spared the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria from being burned.

19 And all the temples also of idols that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah removed, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Beth-el.

20 And he slew all the priests of the high places, who burned incense upon the altars and burned men's bones upon them, and he returned to Jerusalem.