| 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. |
