1    ^noteThen the king sent and called all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem together, and went up to the house of the Lord; 2   he took with him the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, the whole population, high and low. There he read out to them all the book of the covenant discovered in the house of the Lord; and then, 3   standing on the dais, ^note the king made a covenant before the Lord to obey him and keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart and soul, and so fulfil the terms of the covenant written in this book. And all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

The last kings of Judah

4   Next, the king ordered the high priest Hilkiah, the deputy high priest, ^note and those on duty at the entrance, to remove from the house of the Lord all the objects made for Baal and Asherah and all the host of heaven; he burnt these outside Jerusalem, in the open country by the Kidron, and carried the ashes to Bethel. 5   He suppressed the heathen priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn ^note sacrifices at the hill-shrines in the cities of Judah and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, as well as those who burnt sacrifices to Baal, to the sun and moon and planets and all the host of heaven. 6   He took the symbol of Asherah ^note from the house of the Lord to the gorge of the Kidron outside Jerusalem, burnt it there and pounded it to dust, which was then scattered over the common burial-ground. 7   He also pulled down the houses of the male prostitutes attached to the house of the Lord, where the women wove vestments in honour of Asherah.

8   He brought in all the priests from the cities of Judah and desecrated the hill-shrines where they had burnt sacrifices, from Geba to Beersheba, and dismantled the hill-shrines of the demons ^note in front of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, to the left of the city gate. 9   These priests, however, never came up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem but used to eat unleavened bread with the priests of their clan. 10   He desecrated Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one might make his son or daughter pass through the fire in honour of Molech. ^note 11   He destroyed the horses that the kings of Judah had set up in honour of the sun at the entrance to the house of the Lord, beside the room of Nathan-melek the eunuch in the colonnade, and he burnt the chariots of the sun. 12   He pulled down the altars made by the kings of Judah on the roof by the upper chamber of Ahaz and the altars made by Manasseh in the two courts of the house of the Lord; he pounded them to dust and threw it into the gorge of the Kidron. 13   Also, on the east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Olives, ^note the king desecrated the hill-shrines which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the loathsome goddess of the Sidonians, and for Kemosh the loathsome god of Moab, and for Milcom the abominable god of the Ammonites; 14   he broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred poles and filled the places where they had stood with human bones.

15   At Bethel he dismantled the altar by ^note the hill-shrine made by Jeroboam son of Nebat who led Israel into sin, together with the hill-shrine itself; he broke its stones in pieces, ^note crushed them to dust and burnt the sacred pole. 16   When Josiah set eyes on the graves which were

The last kings of Judah there on the hill, he sent and took the bones from them and burnt them on the altar to desecrate it, thus fulfilling the word of the Lord announced by the man of God when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the feast. But when he caught sight of the grave of the man of God ^note who had foretold these things, 17   he asked, ‘What is that monument I see there?’ The people of the city answered, ‘The grave of the man of God who came from Judah and foretold all that you have done to the altar at Bethel.’ 18   ‘Leave it alone,’ he said; ‘let no one disturb his bones.’ So they spared his bones and also those of the prophet who came from Samaria. 19   Further, Josiah suppressed all the hill-shrines in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had set up and thereby provoked the Lord's ^note anger, and he did to them what he had done at Bethel. 20   He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the hill-shrines who were there, and he burnt human bones upon them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

21   The king ordered all the people to keep the Passover to the Lord their God, as this book of the covenant prescribed; 22   no such Passover had been kept either when the judges were ruling Israel or during the times of the kings of Israel and Judah. 23   But in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem. 24   Further, Josiah got rid of all who called up ghosts and spirits, of all household gods ^note and idols and all the loathsome objects seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might fulfil the requirements of the law written in the book which the priest Hilkiah had discovered in the house of the Lord. 25   No king before him had turned to the Lord as he did, with all his heart and soul and strength, following the whole law of Moses; nor did any king like him appear again.

26   Yet the Lord did not abate his fierce anger; it still burned against Judah because of all the provocation which Manasseh had given him. 27   ‘Judah also I will banish from my presence’, he declared, ‘as I banished Israel; and I will cast off this city of Jerusalem which once I chose, and the house where I promised that my Name should be.’

28   The other events and acts of Josiah's reign are recorded in the annals of the kings of Judah. 29   It was in his reign that Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt set out for the river Euphrates to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah went to meet him; and when they met at Megiddo, Pharaoh Necho slew him. 30    ^noteHis attendants conveyed his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own burial place. Then the people of the land took Josiah's son Jehoahaz and anointed him king in place of his father.

31   Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he came to the throne,

The last kings of Judah and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months; his mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32   He did what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord, as his forefathers had done. 33   Pharaoh Necho removed him from the throne ^note in Jerusalem, and imposed on the land a fine of a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold. 34   Pharaoh Necho made Josiah's son Eliakim king in place of his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt, where he died. 35   Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold to Pharaoh, taxing the country to meet Pharaoh's demands; he exacted it from the people, from every man according to his assessment, so that he could pay Pharaoh Necho.

36   Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years; his mother was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 37   He did what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord, as his forefathers had done.

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