列王紀下23:1-30

 

23:1 王差遣人招聚猶大和耶路撒冷的眾長老來。
23:2 王和猶大眾人與耶路撒冷的居民，並祭司、先知，和所有的百姓，無論大小，都一同上到耶和華的殿；王就把耶和華殿裡所得的約書念給他們聽。
23:3 王站在柱旁，在耶和華面前立約，要盡心盡性地順從耶和華，遵守他的誡命、法度、律例，成就這書上所記的約言。眾民都服從這約。
23:4 王吩咐大祭司希勒家和副祭司，並把門的，將那為巴力和亞舍拉，並天上萬象所造的器皿，都從耶和華殿裡搬出來，在耶路撒冷外汲淪溪旁的田間燒了，把灰拿到伯特利去。
23:5 從前猶大列王所立拜偶像的祭司，在猶大城邑的邱壇和耶路撒冷的周圍燒香，現在王都廢去，又廢去向巴力和日、月、行星（或譯：十二宮），並天上萬象燒香的人；
23:6 又從耶和華殿裡將亞舍拉搬到耶路撒冷外汲淪溪邊焚燒，打碎成灰，將灰撒在平民的墳上；
23:7 又拆毀耶和華殿裡孌童的屋子，就是婦女為亞舍拉織帳子的屋子，
23:8 並且從猶大的城邑帶眾祭司來，污穢祭司燒香的邱壇，從迦巴直到別是巴，又拆毀城門旁的邱壇，這邱壇在邑宰約書亞門前，進城門的左邊。
23:9 但是邱壇的祭司不登耶路撒冷耶和華的壇，只在他們弟兄中間吃無酵餅。
23:10 又污穢欣嫩子谷的陀斐特，不許人在那裡使兒女經火獻給摩洛；
23:11 又將猶大列王在耶和華殿門旁、太監拿單．米勒靠近遊廊的屋子、向日頭所獻的馬廢去，且用火焚燒日車。
23:12 猶大列王在亞哈斯樓頂上所築的壇和瑪拿西在耶和華殿兩院中所築的壇，王都拆毀打碎了，就把灰倒在汲淪溪中。
23:13 從前以色列王所羅門在耶路撒冷前、邪僻山右邊為西頓人可憎的神亞斯她錄、摩押人可憎的神基抹、亞捫人可憎的神米勒公所築的邱壇，王都污穢了，
23:14 又打碎柱像，砍下木偶，將人的骨頭充滿了那地方。
23:15 他將伯特利的壇，就是叫以色列人陷在罪裡、尼八的兒子耶羅波安所築的那壇，都拆毀焚燒，打碎成灰，並焚燒了亞舍拉。
23:16 約西亞回頭，看見山上的墳墓，就打發人將墳墓裡的骸骨取出來，燒在壇上，污穢了壇，正如從前神人宣傳耶和華的話。
23:17 約西亞問說：「我所看見的是甚麼碑？」那城裡的人回答說：「先前有神人從猶大來，預先說王現在向伯特利壇所行的事，這就是他的墓碑。」
23:18 約西亞說：「由他吧！不要挪移他的骸骨。」他們就不動他的骸骨，也不動從撒馬利亞來那先知的骸骨。
23:19 從前以色列諸王在撒馬利亞的城邑建築邱壇的殿，惹動耶和華的怒氣，現在約西亞都廢去了，就如他在伯特利所行的一般；
23:20 又將邱壇的祭司都殺在壇上，並在壇上燒人的骨頭，就回耶路撒冷去了。
23:21 王吩咐眾民說：「你們當照這約書上所寫的，向耶和華─你們的上帝守逾越節。」
23:22 自從士師治理以色列人和以色列王、猶大王的時候，直到如今，實在沒有守過這樣的逾越節；
23:23 只有約西亞王十八年在耶路撒冷向耶和華守這逾越節。
23:24 凡猶大國和耶路撒冷所有交鬼的、行巫術的，與家中的神像和偶像，並一切可憎之物，約西亞盡都除掉，成就了祭司希勒家在耶和華殿裡所得律法書上所寫的話。
23:25 在約西亞以前沒有王像他盡心、盡性、盡力地歸向耶和華，遵行摩西的一切律法；在他以後也沒有興起一個王像他。
23:26 然而，耶和華向猶大所發猛烈的怒氣仍不止息，是因瑪拿西諸事惹動他。
23:27 耶和華說：「我必將猶大人從我面前趕出，如同趕出以色列人一般；我必棄掉我從前所選擇的這城─耶路撒冷和我所說立我名的殿。」
23:28 約西亞其餘的事，凡他所行的都寫在猶大列王記上。
23:29 約西亞年間，埃及王法老尼哥上到幼發拉底河攻擊亞述王；約西亞王去抵擋他。埃及王遇見約西亞在米吉多，就殺了他。
23:30 他的臣僕用車將他的屍首從米吉多送到耶路撒冷，葬在他自己的墳墓裡。國民膏約西亞的兒子約哈斯接續他父親作王。

 

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. ² He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. ³ The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.

⁴ The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. ⁵ He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. ⁶ He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. ⁷ He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

⁸ Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. ⁹ Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.

¹⁰ He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. ¹¹ He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court^[a] near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.

¹² He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. ¹³ The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. ¹⁴ Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

¹⁵ Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. ¹⁶ Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.

¹⁷ The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”

The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have done to it.”

¹⁸ “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

¹⁹ Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the Lord’s anger. ²⁰ Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

²¹ The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” ²² Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed. ²³ But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.

²⁴ Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. ²⁵ Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

²⁶ Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his anger. ²⁷ So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’^[b]”

²⁸ As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁹ While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo. ³⁰ Josiah’s servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

 

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    約西亞王不只自己悔改，更是將這樣的悔改行動實施在整個猶大地區，而且是非常劇烈與徹底的執行，使全國人心歸向敬拜上帝！只是很可惜的是：「在約西亞以前沒有王像他盡心、盡性、盡力地歸向耶和華，遵行摩西的一切律法；在他以後也沒有興起一個王像他。然而，耶和華向猶大所發猛烈的怒氣仍不止息，是因瑪拿西諸事惹動他。」

 

    耶和華說：「我必將猶大人從我面前趕出，如同趕出以色列人一般；我必棄掉我從前所選擇的這城─耶路撒冷和我所說立我名的殿。」

 

    求主保守教會不要發生這樣的事情！也因為這樣《韋斯敏斯德信條第卅章論教會的懲戒第三節》中說到：「教會為了矯正或獲得犯罪的弟兄，阻止其他弟兄犯同樣的罪，除去那足以感染全團的酵；擁護基督的尊榮和福音神聖的承認；避免上帝的震怒（如他們容忍惡譽昭彰和剛愎的犯罪者來褻瀆神的聖約，和此約的印證，此忿怒正可臨到教會），必須實行懲戒。」

 

    我們永遠不要忘記：上帝對罪是震怒的！