| |
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 into 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 by a pillar, 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 their heart
and all their soul, to perform 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 grove, 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 Bethel. |
5
|
And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings
of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places
in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem;
them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and
to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of
heaven. |
6
|
And he brought out the grove 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 children
of the people. |
7
|
And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were
by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings
for the grove. |
8
|
And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah,
and defiled the high places where the priests had burned
incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high
places of the gates that were in the entering in of the
gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on
a man's left hand at 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 of the unleavened bread among their brethren. |
10
|
And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the
children 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 entering in of the house of the
LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which
was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun
with fire. |
12
|
And the altars that were on the top 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 beat down, and brake 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
abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination
of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the
children of Ammon, did the king defile. |
14
|
And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves,
and filled their places with the bones of men. |
15
|
Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place
which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,
had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down,
and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder,
and burned the grove. |
16
|
And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres
that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones
out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar,
and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which
the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words. |
17
|
Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the
men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man
of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things
that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel. |
18
|
And he said, Let him alone; 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 to anger, Josiah took away, and
did to them according to all the acts that he had done
in Bethel. |
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 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 the
book of this covenant. |
22
|
Surely there was not holden 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, wherein this
passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem. |
24
|
Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards,
and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations
that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem,
did Josiah put away, that he might perform 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 that Manasseh had
provoked him withal. |
27
|
And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my
sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this
city Jerusalem which I have chosen, 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 Pharaohnechoh 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 Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land
of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put
the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver,
and a talent of gold. |
34
|
And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king
in the room of Josiah his father, and turned his name to
Jehoiakim, and 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 Pharaohnechoh. |
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. |
