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2 Kings 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. |