31 Jehoahaz
was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from
Libnah. 32 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.
33 Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of
Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy
of a hundred talents[c] of silver
and a talent[d] of gold. 34 Pharaoh
Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed
Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt,
and there he died. 35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Necho the silver
and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the
silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments.
36 Jehoiakim
was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from
Rumah. 37 And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done.
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.
Josiah
was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one
years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. 2 He
did what was right in the eyes of the Lord
and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the
right or to the left.
3 In
the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son
of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: 4 “Go up to Hilkiah the high
priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple
of the Lord, which the doorkeepers
have collected from the people. 5 Have them entrust it to the
men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the
workers who repair the temple of the Lord—
6 the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them
purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. 7 But
they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest
in their dealings.”
8 Hilkiah
the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the
Law in the temple of the Lord.” He
gave it to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then Shaphan the secretary
went to the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the money
that was in the temple of the Lord
and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple.” 10 Then
Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a
book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.
11 When
the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He
gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of
Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: 13 “Go
and inquire of the Lord for me and
for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has
been found. Great is the Lord’s
anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not
obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that
is written there concerning us.”
14 Hilkiah
the priest, Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophet
Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of
the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter.
15 She
said to them, “This is what the Lord,
the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 16 ‘This
is what the Lord says: I am going
to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written
in the book the king of Judah has read. 17 Because they have
forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all the
idols their hands have made,[a] my anger
will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ 18 Tell
the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord,
the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: 19 Because
your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken
against this place and its people—that they would become a curse[b] and be laid
waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have
heard you, declares the Lord. 20 Therefore
I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes
will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’”
