2 Kings 23:4-20

Contemporary English Version

Josiah Follows the Teachings of God's Law

(2 Chronicles 34.3-7)

^4 (A) Josiah told Hilkiah the priest, the assistant priests, and the guards at the temple door to go into the temple and bring out the things used to worship Baal, Asherah, and the stars. Josiah had these things burned in Kidron Valley just outside Jerusalem, and he had the ashes carried away to the town of Bethel.

⁵ Josiah also got rid of the pagan priests at the local shrines in Judah and around Jerusalem. These were the men that the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices to Baal and to the sun, moon, and stars. ⁶ Josiah had the sacred pole^[a] for Asherah brought out of the temple and taken to Kidron Valley, where it was burned. He then had its ashes ground into dust and scattered over the public cemetery there. ⁷ He had the buildings torn down where the male prostitutes^[b] lived next to the temple, and where the women wove sacred robes^[c] for the idol of Asherah.

⁸ In almost every town in Judah, priests had been offering sacrifices to the Lord at local shrines.^[d] Josiah brought these priests to Jerusalem and had their shrines made unfit for worship—every shrine from Geba just north of Jerusalem to Beersheba in the south. He even tore down the shrine at Beersheba that was just to the left of Joshua Gate, which was named after the highest official of the city. ⁹ Those local priests could not serve at the Lord's altar in Jerusalem, but they were allowed to eat sacred bread,^[e] just like the priests from Jerusalem.

^10 (B) Josiah sent some men to Hinnom Valley just outside Jerusalem with orders to make the altar there unfit for worship. That way, people could no longer use it for sacrificing their children to the god Molech. ¹¹ He also got rid of the horses that the kings of Judah used in their ceremonies to worship the sun, and he destroyed the chariots along with them. The horses had been kept near the entrance to the Lord's temple, in a courtyard^[f] close to where an official named Nathan-Melech lived.

^12 (C) Some of the kings of Judah, especially Manasseh, had built altars in the two courts of the temple and in the room that Ahaz had built on the palace roof. Josiah had these altars torn down and smashed to pieces, and he had the pieces thrown into Kidron Valley, just outside Jerusalem. ^13 (D) After that, he closed down the shrines that Solomon had built east of Jerusalem and south of Spoil Hill to honor Astarte the disgusting goddess of Sidon, Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Milcom the disgusting god of Ammon.^{[g] 14} He tore down the stone images of foreign gods and cut down the sacred pole used in the worship of Asherah. Then he had the whole area covered with human bones.^[h]

^15 (E) But Josiah was not finished yet. At Bethel he destroyed the shrine and the altar that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built and that had caused the Israelites to sin. Josiah had the shrine and the Asherah pole burned and ground into dust. ^16 (F) As he looked around, he saw graves on the hillside. He had the bones in them dug up and burned on the altar, so that it could no longer be used. This happened just as God's prophet had said when Jeroboam was standing at the altar, celebrating a festival.^[i]

Then Josiah saw the grave of the prophet who had said this would happen ^17 (G) and he asked,^[j] “Whose grave is that?”

Some people who lived nearby answered, “It belongs to the prophet from Judah who told what would happen to this altar.”

¹⁸ Josiah replied, “Then leave it alone. Don't dig up his bones.” So they did not disturb his bones or the bones of the old prophet from Israel who had also been buried there.^[k]

¹⁹ Some of the Israelite kings had made the Lord angry by building pagan shrines all over Israel. So Josiah sent troops to destroy these shrines just as he had done to the one in Bethel. ²⁰ He killed the priests who served at them and burned their bones on the altars.

After all that, Josiah went back to Jerusalem.