SECOND
KINGS
2 Kings Chapter 23
1
¶ Then the king sent, and gathered to him all the
elders of
2
And the king went up to the house of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the prophets, and all of
the people, both small and great: and he read in their hearing all the words of
the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD.
3
And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow
the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes
with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this
covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in 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 carry out of
the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, and for the groves, and
for all the starry host of heaven: and he burned them outside Jerusalem
in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to
Bethel.
5
And he put out the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of
6
And he took the Asherah pole
from the house of the LORD, outside
7
And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, who were by the house of
the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the groves.
8
And he brought all the idolatrous priests out of the cities of Judah,
and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and broke down the high places of the
gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of
the city, and that which was on one’s left at the gate of the city.
9
Nevertheless the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the
LORD in
10
And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley
of the children of Hinnom, so that no man might ever
burn his son or his daughter there as an offering Molech.
11
And he took away the horses that the kings of
12
And the king beat down the altars that were on the top of the upper
chamber of Ahaz, that the kings of Judah had made,
and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the house of the
LORD, and broke them down from there, and threw the dust of them into
the brook Kidron.
13
And the King defiled high places that were before Jerusalem, which were
on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel
had built 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.
14
And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their
places with the bones of men.
15
Moreover he broke down both the altar that was at
16
And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were across on the mount,
and sent, and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on 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 is that monument that I see? And
the men of the city told him, It is the
tomb of the man of God, who came from
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
19
And also Josiah took away all the houses of the high places that were in
the cities of
20
And he executed all the priests of the high places that were there on
the altars, and burned men’s bones on them, and returned to
21
And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep
the passover to the LORD your God, as it is
written in the book of this covenant.
22
Surely no such passover was
held since the time of the judges who judged
23
But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, this passover was kept to the LORD in
24
Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, the wizards, the images, the idols, and
all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that
he might carry out the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
25
¶ And before him there was no king like him, who 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; nor did any arise after him.
26
Still the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, by which
his anger was kindled against
27
And the LORD said, I also will remove Judah from my sight, as I have removed
Israel, and will cast off this city of Jerusalem that 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 records of the kings of
29
In his days Pharaohnechoh king of
30
And Josiah’s servants carried him in a chariot dead from
31
¶ Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he
began to reign; and he reigned for three months in
32
And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that
his fathers had done.
33
And Pharaohnechoh put him in bonds at Riblah in the
34
And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim
the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name
to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz
away: and he was taken to
35
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to
Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money as Pharaoh commanded: he
exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from every one
according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaohnechoh.
36
Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he
began to reign; and he reigned for eleven years in
37
And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that
his fathers had done.