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2 KingsChapter 23

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Then the king sent word, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.
The king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him every man of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, and all the people, from the least to the greatest. And he read in their hearing every word of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD.
The king stood by the pillar and made the covenant before the LORD: to follow the LORD and keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, carrying out the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.
Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold to remove from the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.
He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, along with those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
He brought the Asherah pole out of the house of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, burned it there, ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.
He tore down the quarters of the male cult prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for Asherah.
He brought all the priests in from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He tore down the high places at the gates—the one at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, on the left as one enters the city gate.
However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem; they only ate unleavened bread among their brothers.
He defiled Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the LORD, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
The king tore down the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD. He smashed them there and threw their rubble into the Kidron Valley.
The king also defiled the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the detestable god of the Ammonites.
He shattered the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with human bones.
He also tore down the altar at Bethel—the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into sin—that altar and that high place. He burned the high place, ground it to dust, and burned the Asherah pole.
Then Josiah turned and saw the tombs there on the hill. He sent men to take the bones from the tombs, and he burned them on the altar and defiled it, in keeping with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.
He asked, "What is that monument I see?" The men of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar at Bethel."
"Leave it alone," he said. "Let no one disturb his bones." So they spared his bones, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
Josiah also removed all the shrines at the high places in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had built to provoke the LORD to anger, and he did to them just as he had done at Bethel.
He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
The king commanded all the people: "Keep the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant."
No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who ruled Israel, nor throughout all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.
Josiah also swept away the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to fulfill the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.
Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
Even so, the LORD did not turn from the fierce heat of his great anger, which burned against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.
The LORD said, "I will remove Judah also from my presence, as I removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the house of which I said, 'My Name shall be there.'"
As for 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?
In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched up to the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went out to meet him, and Neco killed him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him.
His servants carried his body in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.
Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.
He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his fathers had done.
Pharaoh Neco imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he could not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed on the land a fine of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away to Egypt, and there he died.
Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to raise the money Pharaoh demanded. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.
Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah.
He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his fathers had done.
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