Chapter 22

Reign of Josiah. ¹ 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 Lord’s sight, walking in the way of David his father, not turning right or left.

The Book of the Law. ^3 (A)In his eighteenth year, King Josiah sent the scribe Shaphan,^[a] son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the house of the Lord with these orders: ⁴ “Go to the high priest Hilkiah and have him calculate the valuables that have been brought to the house of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. ⁵ Then have him turn them over to the master workers in the house of the Lord, and have them give them to the ordinary workers who are in the house of the Lord to repair its breaches: ⁶ to the carpenters, the builders, and the masons, and to purchase wood and hewn stone. ⁷ No reckoning shall be asked of them regarding the funds provided to them, because they hold positions of trust.”

⁸ The high priest Hilkiah informed the scribe Shaphan, “I have found the book of the law^[b] in the temple of the Lord.” Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, who read it. ⁹ Then the scribe Shaphan went to the king and reported, “Your servants have smelted down the silver deposited in the temple and have turned it over to the master workers in the house of the Lord.” ¹⁰ The scribe Shaphan also informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and then Shaphan read it in the presence of the king. ¹¹ When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his garments.

¹² The king then issued this command to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, son of Shaphan, Achbor, son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant: ¹³ “Go, consult the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, about the words of this book that has been found, for the rage of the Lord has been set furiously ablaze against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, nor do what is written for us.” ¹⁴ So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophet, wife of Shallum, son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter. When they had spoken to her, ¹⁵ she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Say to the man who sent you to me, ¹⁶ Thus says the Lord: I am about to bring evil upon this place and upon its inhabitants—all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read. ¹⁷ Because they have abandoned me and have burned incense to other gods, provoking me by all the works of their hands, my rage is ablaze against this place and it cannot be extinguished.

¹⁸ “But to the king of Judah who sent you to consult the Lord, give this response: Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: As for the words you have heard, ¹⁹ because you were heartsick and have humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken concerning this place and its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse; and because you tore your garments and wept before me, I in turn have heard, oracle of the Lord. ²⁰ I will therefore gather you to your ancestors; you shall go to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evil I am about to bring upon this place.” This they reported to the king.

Chapter 23

¹ The king then had all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem summoned before him. ² The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: priests, prophets, and all the people, great and small. He read aloud to them all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord.^{(B) 3} The king stood by the column and made a covenant in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and to observe his commandments, statutes, and decrees with his whole heart and soul, and to re-establish the words of the covenant written in this book. And all the people stood by the covenant.

Josiah’s Religious Reform. ⁴ Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, his assistant priests, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the objects that had been made for Baal, Asherah, and the whole host of heaven. These he burned outside Jerusalem on the slopes of the Kidron; their ashes were carried to Bethel.^{(C) 5} He also put an end to the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the vicinity of Jerusalem, as well as those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, moon, and signs of the zodiac, and to the whole host of heaven.^{(D) 6} From the house of the Lord he also removed the Asherah to the Wadi Kidron, outside Jerusalem; he burned it and beat it to dust, in the Wadi Kidron, and scattered its dust over the graveyard of the people of the land.^{[c](E) 7} He tore down the apartments of the cult prostitutes in the house of the Lord, where the women wove garments for the Asherah.^{(F) 8} He brought in all the priests from the cities of Judah, and then defiled, from Geba to Beer-sheba, the high places where they had offered incense. He also tore down the high places of the gates, which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, governor of the city, north of the city gate. ⁹ (The priests of the high places could not function at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem; but they, along with their relatives, ate the unleavened bread.)

¹⁰ The king also defiled Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, so that there would no longer be any immolation of sons or daughters by fire^[d] in honor of Molech.^{(G) 11} He did away with the horses which the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun; these were at the entrance of the house of the Lord, near the chamber of Nathan-melech the official, which was in the large building. The chariots of the sun he destroyed by fire. ¹² He also demolished the altars made by the kings of Judah on the roof (the roof terrace of Ahaz), and the altars made by Manasseh in the two courts of the Lord’s house. He pulverized them and threw the dust into the Wadi Kidron.^{(H) 13} The king defiled the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of the Destroyer,^[e] which Solomon, king of Israel, had built in honor of Astarte, the Sidonian horror, of Chemosh, the Moabite horror, and of Milcom, the Ammonites’ abomination.^{(I) 14} He broke to pieces the pillars, cut down the asherahs, and filled the places where they had been with human bones.^(J)

¹⁵ Likewise the altar which was at Bethel, the high place built by Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin—this same altar and high place he tore down and burned, grinding the high place to powder and burning the asherah.^{(K) 16} When Josiah turned and saw the graves there on the mountainside, he ordered the bones taken from the graves and burned on the altar, and thus defiled it, according to the Lord’s word proclaimed by the man of God as Jeroboam stood by the altar on the feast day. When the king looked up and saw the grave of the man of God who had proclaimed these words, ¹⁷ he asked, “What is that marker I see?” The people of the city replied, “The grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed the very things you have done to the altar in Bethel.” ¹⁸ “Let him be,” he said, “let no one move his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed together with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.^{[f] 19} Josiah also removed all the temples on the high places in the cities of Samaria which the kings of Israel had built, provoking the Lord; he did the very same to them as he had done in Bethel. ²⁰ He slaughtered upon the altars all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned human bones upon them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king issued a command to all the people: “Observe the Passover of the Lord, your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.”^{(L) 22} No Passover such as this had been observed during the period when the judges ruled Israel, or during the entire period of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, ²³ until the eighteenth year of King Josiah, when this Passover of the Lord was kept in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Further, Josiah purged the consultation of ghosts and spirits, with the household gods, idols,^[g] and all the other horrors to be seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he might carry out the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the Lord.^(M)

²⁵ Before him there had been no king who turned to the Lord as he did, with his whole heart, his whole being, and his whole strength, in accord with the entire law of Moses; nor did any king like him arise after him.^(N)