2 Kings 23

2 Kings Chapter 23 KJV

1Josiah causeth the book to be read in a solemn assembly. 3He reneweth the covenant between the Lord and the people. 4He destroyeth idolatry in Judah. 15He burneth men's bones upon the altar at Beth-el according to the prophecy, sparing the sepulchre of the prophet who had foretold these things. 19He pulleth down the idolatrous houses in the cities of Samaria, and slayeth the priests. 21He causeth a solemn passover to be kept. 24He putteth away witches and all abominations, and excelleth in piety all kings before and after him. 26God's determined wrath against Judah for Manasseh's provocations. 28Josiah's acts: 29he is slain in a battle with Pharaoh-nechoh; Jehoahaz succeedeth him. 31Jehoahaz after a wicked reign of three months is deposed and imprisoned by Pharaoh-nechoh, who maketh Jehoiakim king, and carrieth Jehoahaz to Egypt. 35Jehoiakim taxeth the land for Pharaoh's tribute. 36His wicked reign.
1 And the 1king 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 1all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, aboth small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of 2the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord.
3 ¶ And the 1king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, 2to walk after the Lord, and to keep his 3commandments 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 4stood to the covenant.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the 1priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the 2vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem 3in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto 4Beth-el.
5 And he aput down bthe 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 1Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the cplanets, and to all the host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the 1grove 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 2upon the graves of the children of the people.
7 And he brake down the houses 1of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, 2where the women wove ahangings 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 1Geba to Beer-sheba, 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 1priests 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 1Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that 2no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to 3Molech.
11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the 1sun, at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the achamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 And the altars that were 1on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which 2Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and abrake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into 3the brook Kidron.
13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of athe mount of corruption, which 1Solomon 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 1brake in pieces the aimages, and cut down the groves, and filled their places 2with the bones of men.
15 ¶ Moreover 1the altar that was at Beth-el, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, 2who 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 1burned 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 1the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Beth-el.
18 And he said, Let him aalone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the 1prophet that came out of Samaria.
19 And 1all 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 Beth-el.
20 And he aslew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and 1burned men's bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
21 ¶ And the king commanded all the people, saying, 1Keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in 2the book of this covenant.
22 Surely there was not holden 1such 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 1workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the aimages, 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 1like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with 2all 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 1the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the aprovocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.
27 And the Lord said, 1I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as 2I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, 3My name shall be there.
28 Now 1the 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 1his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he 2slew him at Megiddo, when he had 3seen him.
30 And 1his servants carried him in a chariot 2dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre. And 3the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead.
31 aJehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was 1Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 And 1he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
33 And Pharaoh-nechoh 1put him in bands at 2Riblah in the land of 3Hamath, athat he might not reign in Jerusalem; and bput the land to a tribute of 4an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
34 And Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father, and 1turned his name to 2Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came 3to Egypt, and died there.
35 And Jehoiakim 1gave 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-nechoh.
36 ¶ Jehoiakim was 1twenty 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 1evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
2 Kings 23