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Chapter 23 |
| 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. |
