2The king went up to the house of the LORD. All the men of Judah and all the people living in Jerusalem went with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, small and great. He read aloud to them all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD.
3The king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the LORD: to follow the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, and to carry out the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people agreed to stand by the covenant.
4The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, 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. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.
5He put an end to the idol priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem. He also put an end to those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6He brought the grove out from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron. He ground it small into powder, and threw the powder on the graves of the common people.
7He broke down the houses of the sodomites, which were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and made the high places unclean where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He broke down the high places at the gates, at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the city gate.
9But the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem. They only ate the unleavened bread among their brothers.
10He made Topheth unclean, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
11He 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 room of Nathanmelech the officer, which was in the outer part. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12The altars on the roof of the upper room 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, the king beat down. He broke them down from there, and threw their dust into the brook Kidron.
13The king also made unclean the high places that were east of Jerusalem, on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.
14He broke the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15He also broke down the altar that was at Bethel and the high place made by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. He broke down both that altar and the high place. He burned the high place and ground it small into powder, and burned the grove.
16As Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs that were there on the hill. He sent and took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and so made it unclean. This was according to the word of the LORD which the man of God had proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
17Then he said, "What monument is that which I see?" And the men of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel."
18He said, "Leave him alone. Let no one move his bones." So they left his bones alone, along with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.
19Josiah also took away all the buildings of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger. He did to them just as he had done in Bethel.
20He killed all the priests of the high places who were there, on the altars, and burned men's bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21The king commanded all the people, "Keep the passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant."
22No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah.
24Josiah also removed those who worked with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
25There 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 might, according to all the law of Moses. And after him no one rose up like him.
26Even so, the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath. His anger burned against Judah because of all the ways Manasseh had provoked him.
27The LORD said, "I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel. I will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, 'My name shall be there.'"
28The 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?
29In his days Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went out against him, and Pharaohnechoh killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.
30His servants carried his body in a chariot from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.
31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his fathers had done.
33Pharaohnechoh put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he could not reign in Jerusalem. He also made the land pay a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
34Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.
35Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to raise the money as Pharaoh commanded. He demanded the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from each one according to his tax, to give it to Pharaohnechoh.
36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his fathers had done.