Book of II Kings
Chapter 22
1 ¶ Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he
reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jedidah
the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
2 And he did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD,
and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to
the right hand or to the left.
3 And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah,
that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the
scribe, to the house of the LORD, saying.
4 'Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the
money which is brought into the house of the LORD, which the keepers of
the door have gathered of the people;
5 and let them deliver it into the hand of the workmen
that have the oversight of the house of the LORD; and let them give it
to the workmen that are in the house of the LORD, to repair the breaches
of the house;
6 unto the carpenters, and to the builders, and to the
masons; and for buying timber and hewn stone to repair the house.'--
7 Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the
money that was delivered into their hand; for they dealt faithfully.
8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe:
'I have found the book of the Law in the house of the LORD.' And Hilkiah
delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
9 And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought
back word unto the king, and said: `Thy servants have poured out the money
that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the
workmen that have the oversight of the house of the LORD.'
10 And Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying: 'Hilkiah
the priest hath delivered me a book.' And Shaphan read it before the king.
11 ¶ And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words
of the book of the Law, that he rent his clothes.
12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam
the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the scribe,
and Asaiah the king's servant, saying:
13 'Go ye, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the people,
and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for
great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our
fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according
unto all that which is written concerning us.'
14 So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan,
and Asaiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son
of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe--now she dwelt in
Jerusalem in the second quarter--and they spoke with her.
15 And she said unto them: 'Thus saith the LORD, the God
of Israel: Tell ye the man that sent you unto me:
16 Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will bring evil upon
this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words of the
book which the king of Judah hath read;
17 because they have forsaken Me, and have offered unto
other gods, that they might provoke Me with all the work of their hands;
therefore My wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it shall not
be quenched.
18 But unto the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire
of the LORD, thus shall ye say to him: Thus saith the LORD, the God of
Israel: As touching the words which thou hast heard,
19 because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble
thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spoke against this place,
and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become an astonishment
and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before Me, I also have
heard thee, saith the LORD.
20 Therefore, behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers,
and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes
see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.' And they brought
back word unto the king.
Chapter 23
1 ¶ And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders
of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and all
the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the
priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; and
he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was
found in the house of the LORD.
3 And the king stood on the platform, and made a covenant
before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments,
and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and all his
soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book;
and all the people stood to the covenant.
4 ¶ And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and
the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring
forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for
Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned
them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of
them unto Beth-el.
5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings
of Judah had ordained to offer in the high places in the cities of Judah,
and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that offered unto Baal,
to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the
host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the
LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook
Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon
the graves of the common people.
7 And he broke down the houses of the sodomites, that were
in the house of the LORD, where the women wove coverings for the Asherah.
8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah,
and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from
Geba to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates that
were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which
were on a man's left hand as he entered the gate of the city.
9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not
up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened bread
among their brethren.
10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the
son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through
the fire to Molech.
11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah
had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of the LORD, by the
chamber of Nethan-melech the officer, which was in the precincts; and he
burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 And the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber
of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh
had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king break
down, and beat them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the
brook Kidron.
13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which
were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king
of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the detestation of the Zidonians, and
for Chemosh the detestation of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of
the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
14 And he broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the
Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15 Moreover the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high
place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made,
even that altar and the high place he broke down; and he burned the high
place and stamped it small to powder, and burned the Asherah.
16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres
that were there in the mount; and he sent, and took the bones out of the
sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to
the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these
things.
17 Then he said: 'What monument is that which I see' And
the men of the city told him: 'It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who
came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against
the altar of Beth-el.'
18 And he said: 'Let him be; let no man move his bones.'
So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out
of Samaria.
19 And all the houses also of the high places that were
in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke
the LORD, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that
he had done in Beth-el.
20 And he slew all the priests of the high places that
were there, upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them; and he returned
to Jerusalem.
21 And the king commanded all the people, saying: 'Keep
the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the
covenant.'
22 For there was not kept such a passover from the days
of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel,
nor of the kings of Judah;
23 but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover
kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24 Moreover them that divined by a ghost or a familiar
spirit, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the detestable things
that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away,
that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book
that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
25 ¶ And like unto him was there no king before him, that
turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with
all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose
there any like him.
26 Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness
of His great wrath, wherewith His anger was kindled against Judah, because
of all the provocations wherewith Manasseh had provoked Him.
27 And the LORD said: 'I will remove Judah also out of
My sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which
I have chosen, even Jerusalem, and the house of which I said: My name shall
be there.'
28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he
did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of
Judah?
29 In his days Pharaoh-necoh king of Egypt went up against
the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and king Josiah went against
him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.
30 And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from
Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre.
And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed
him, and made him king in his father's stead.
31 ¶ Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began
to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother's name
was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD,
according to all that his fathers had done.
33 And Pharaoh-necoh put him in bands at Riblah in the
land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land
to a fine of a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
34 And Pharaoh-necoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king
in the room of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim; but
he took Jehoahaz away; and he came to Egypt, and died there.
35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh;
but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of
Pharaoh; he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land,
of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-necoh.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began
to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name
was Zebudah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD,
according to all that his fathers had done.