2 Kings 23

And the king sent and gathered to himself all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.

And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and every man of Iouda and all who dwelt in Ierousalem with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people from small to great; and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord.

And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his ordinances with all the heart and with all the soul, to establish the words of this covenant, the things written upon this book; and all the people stood in the covenant.

And the king commanded Chelkias the high priest and the priests of the second order and those who kept the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal and for the grove and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Ierousalem in the sademoth of Kedron, and he carried their dust to Baithel.

And he put down the chomarim whom the kings of Iouda had appointed, and who burned incense on the high places and in the cities of Iouda and round about Ierousalem, and those who burned incense to Baal and to the sun and to the moon and to the mazouroth and to all the host of heaven.

And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, outside Ierousalem to the wadi of Kedron, and he burned it in the wadi of Kedron and ground it to dust, and he threw its dust upon the burial place of the sons of the people.

And he pulled down the house of the kadesim that was in the house of the Lord, where the women wove chettiin there for the grove.

And he brought up all the priests out of the cities of Iouda, and he defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Gabaa even to Bersabee; and he pulled down the house of the gates that was beside the door of the gate of Iesous the ruler of the city, on the left hand of a man at the gate of the city.

Only the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Ierousalem, but they only ate unleavened bread in the midst of their brothers.

And he defiled Tapheth, which is in the ravine of the son of Ennom, so that no man should pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Moloch.

And he put down the horses which the kings of Iouda had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the Lord, toward the treasury of Nathan the king, the eunuch, in pharourim; and the chariot of the sun he burned with fire.

And the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Achaz, which the kings of Iouda had made, and the altars which Manasses had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king pulled down and broke in pieces from there, and he threw their dust into the wadi of Kedron.

And the house that was before Ierousalem, on the right of the mount of Mosoath, which Salomon king of Israel had built to Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, and to Chamos the abomination of Moab, and to Molchol the detestable thing of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled.

And he broke in pieces the pillars and utterly destroyed the groves, and he filled their places with the bones of men.

Moreover the altar that was in Baithel, the high place which Ieroboam son of Nabat had made, who caused Israel to sin—that altar too and the high place he pulled down, and he broke its stones in pieces and ground them to dust, and he burned the grove.

And Iosias turned aside and saw the tombs that were there in the city, and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them upon the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God spoke when Ieroboam stood at the feast by the altar. And turning about he lifted up his eyes toward the tomb of the man of God who had spoken these words.

And he said: What is that monument which I see? And the men of the city said to him: It is the man of God who came out of Iouda and called out these words which he called out against the altar of Baithel.

And he said: Let it be; let no man move his bones. And his bones were spared together with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

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, Iosias removed, and he did to them according to all the deeds that he had done at Baithel.

And he sacrificed all the priests of the high places who were there upon the altars, and he burned the bones of men upon them, and he returned to Ierousalem.

And the king commanded all the people, saying: Keep the passover to the Lord our God, as it is written upon the book of this covenant.

For such a passover had not been kept from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Iouda.

But only in the eighteenth year of king Iosias was this passover kept to the Lord in Ierousalem.

Moreover the mediums and the soothsayers and the theraphin and the idols and all the abominations that had come to be in the land of Iouda and in Ierousalem, king Iosias removed, that he might establish the words of the law that were written upon the book which Chelkias the priest found in the house of the Lord.

There was no king like him before him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moyses; nor after him did any arise like him.

Nevertheless the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger was kindled against Iouda, because of the provocations with which Manasses had provoked him.

And the Lord said: Iouda also I will remove from before my face, as I removed Israel; and I will cast off this city which I chose, Ierousalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.

And the rest of the acts of Iosias and all that he did, are not these written upon the book of the words of the days for the kings of Iouda?

And in his days Pharao Nechao king of Egypt went up against the king of the Assyrians, to the river Euphrates; and Iosias went to meet him, and Nechao put him to death at Mageddo when he saw him.

And his servants carried him dead from Mageddo and brought him to Ierousalem and buried him in his own tomb in the city of Dauid. And the people of the land took Ioachas son of Iosias, and they anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

Ioachas was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Ierousalem; and his mother's name was Amital, daughter of Ieremias, from Lemna.

And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

And Pharao Nechao removed him to Deblatha in the land of Emath, so that he should not reign in Ierousalem; and he laid a fine upon the land of one hundred talents of silver and one hundred talents of gold.

And Pharao Nechao made Eliakim son of Iosias king of Iouda king over them in place of Iosias his father, and he changed his name to Ioakim; and Ioachas he took and brought into Egypt, and he died there.

And Ioakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharao; but he assessed the land in order to give the silver at the command of Pharao. Each man according to his assessment—they exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, to give to Pharao Nechao.

Ioakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Ierousalem; and his mother's name was Ieldaph, daughter of Phedeia, from Rouma.

And he did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.