Josiah, King of Judah^(A)

22 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath. ² He did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the ways of David his father. He did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

The Book of the Law Found

³ In the eighteenth year of King Josiah the king sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord, saying, ⁴ “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, and have him prepare the money that has been brought to the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the threshold have gathered from the people. ⁵ Let them deliver it to the hand of the appointed workers of the house of the Lord, and let them give it to the workers who are in the house of the Lord to repair the damages to the house, ⁶ that is, to the carpenters, the builders, and the masons to buy timber and cut stone to repair the house. ⁷ But there need be no settling of accounts with them concerning the money that was given to their hand, because they are behaving honestly.”

⁴ The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the implements that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. Then he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁵ Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven. ⁶ He brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord to the outside of Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley. Then he burned it at the Kidron Valley, crushed it to dust, and threw its dust upon the graves of the people. ⁷ He tore down the houses of the male cult prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women were weaving hangings for the Asherah.

⁸ He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beersheba. He broke down the high places of the gates at the entry of the gates of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city. ⁹ However the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem. Instead they ate unleavened bread among their fellow priests.

¹⁰ He defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that no man would make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molek. ¹¹ He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entry of the house of the Lord, by the hall of Nathan-Melek the eunuch, which was in the vestibule. The chariots of the sun he burned with fire.

¹² The altars that were on the roof 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 the king tore down and banished from there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley. ¹³ The high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Molek the abomination of the Ammonites, the king defiled. ¹⁴ He broke the standing stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their sites with human bones.

¹⁵ Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he tore down. Then he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and he burned the Asherah. ¹⁶ As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mount. He took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed, the one who announced these things.

¹⁷ Then he said, “What is this monument that I see?”

The men of the city said to him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.”

¹⁸ He said, “Let him rest. No one shall disturb his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

¹⁹ Moreover, all the houses 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 removed. He did to them just as he had done in Bethel. ²⁰ 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.