-
And the
king sent, and they gathered unto him all the
elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
02 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.
03 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.
04 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.
05 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.
06 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.
07 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.
08 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.
09 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.
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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.
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