CHAPTER 23
1 which king sent, and all the eld [or old] men of Judah, and of Jerusalem, were gathered to him.
2 And the king went up into the temple of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and all the men that dwelled in Jerusalem with him, the priests and the prophets, and all the people from little unto great; and the king read, while all men heard, all the words of the book of [the] bond of peace of the Lord, the which was found in the house of the Lord.
3 And the king stood on the degrees; and smote a bond of peace before the Lord, that they would go after the Lord, and keep his commandments and witnessings and ceremonies in all their heart and in all their soul, and that they should raise up the words of this bond of peace, that were written in that book; and the people assented to the covenant.
4 And the king commanded to Hilkiah, the bishop, and to the priests of the second order, and to the porters, that they should cast out of the temple [of the Lord] all the vessels, that were made to Baal, and in the maumet wood, and to all the knight-hood of heaven; and he burnt those vessels without or outside Jerusalem, in the even valley of Kidron, and he bare the powder of those vessels into Bethel.
5 And he did away [the] false diviners, which the kings of Judah had set to make sacrifice in high things by the cities of Judah, and in the compass of Jerusalem; and he did away them that burnt incense to Baal, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the twelve signs, and to all the knight-hood of heavens.
6 And the king made the wood of maumetry to be borne out of the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, in the even valley of Kidron, and he burnt it there; and he drove it into powder, and casted it forth upon the sepulchres of the common people.
7 Also he destroyed the little houses of [the] womanish[-made] men, the which houses were in the house of the Lord; for the which houses women weaved, or wattled, as little houses of the woods.
8 And he gathered all the priests from the cities of Judah, and he defouled the high things, where the priests made sacrifice, from Geba unto Beersheba; and he destroyed the altars of the gates in the entering of the door of Joshua, the prince of a city, which door was at the left half of the gate of the city.
9 Nevertheless the priests of [the] high things went not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but only they ate therf loaves in the midst of their brethren.
10 Also he defouled Topheth, which is in the even valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man should hallow his son either his daughter by fire to Moloch.
11 Also he did away [the] horses, that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, in the entering of the temple of the Lord, beside the chamber of Nathanmelech, the gelding, that was in Parvarim, that is, suburbs, or living quarters; forsooth he burnt by fire the chariots of the sun.
12 Also the king destroyed the altars, that were on the roofs of the solar of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made; and the king destroyed the altars, which Manasseh had made in the two great places of the temple of the Lord; and he ran from thence, and scattered the ashes of those altars into the strand [or stream] of Kidron.
13 Also the king defouled the high things, that were in Jerusalem at the right half of the hill of offence, that is, the hill of Olivet or Olives, which Solomon, king of Israel, had builded to Ashtoreth, the idol of Sidonians, and to Chemosh, the offence of Moab, and to Malcham, the abomination of the sons of Ammon;
14 and he all-brake [the] images, and cutted down [the maumet] woods, and filled the places of those [or them] with the bones of dead men.
15 Furthermore also he destroyed the altar that was in Bethel, and the high solemn thing, which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had made, that made Israel to do sin; and he destroyed that high altar, and burnt it, and all-brake it into powder, and cutted down also the [maumet] wood.
16 And Josiah turned, and saw there sepulchres that were in the hill; and he sent, and took the bones from the sepulchres, and burnt those [or them] on the altar, and defouled it, after the word of the Lord, that the man of God spake, that before-said these words.
17 And the king said, What is this burial, that I see? [or Whose is this tomb that I see?] And the citizens of that city answered to him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, that came from Judah, and before-said these words, which thou hast done upon the altar of Bethel.
18 And the king said, Suffer ye him; no man move his bones. And his bones dwelled untouched with the bones of the prophet, that came from Samaria.
19 Furthermore also Josiah did away all the temples of [the] high things, that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to stir the Lord to ire; and he did to those temples by all things which he had done in Bethel.
20 And he killed all the priests of [the] high things, that were there upon the altars, and he burnt men’s bones on those altars; and he turned again to Jerusalem;
21 and he commanded to all the people, and said, Make ye pask to the Lord your God, after that, that is written in the book of this bond of peace.
22 Certainly such a pask was not made, from the days of judges that deemed Israel, and of all the days of the kings of Israel, and of Judah,
23 as this pask was made to the Lord in Jerusalem in the eighteenth year of king Josiah.
24 But also Josiah did away men having fiends speaking in their wombs, and false diviners in altars, and he did away the figures of idols, and all[the] uncleannesses, and [the] abominations, that were in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he should do the words of the law, that were written in the book, that Hilkiah, the priest, found in the temple of the Lord.
25 No king before him was like him, that turned again to the Lord in all his heart, and in all his soul, and in all his strength, after all the law of Moses; neither after him rose any like him.
26 Nevertheless the Lord was not turned away from the ire of his great vengeance, by which his strong vengeance was wroth against Judah, for the stirrings to ire by which Manasseh had stirred him to ire.
27 Therefore the Lord said, I shall do away also Judah from my face, as I did away Israel; and I shall cast away this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.
28 Forsooth the residue of the words of Josiah, and all things that he did, whether these be not written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of the kings of Judah?
29 In the days of Josiah, Pharaoh Necho, the king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyrians, to the flood Euphrates; and Josiah, king of Judah, went into the meeting of Pharaoh, to forbid him to pass through Judah; and Josiah was slain in Megiddo, when he had seen Pharaoh.
30 And his servants bare him dead from Megiddo, and brought him into Jerusalem, and buried him in his sepulchre; and the people of the land took Jehoahaz*, the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king for his father.
31 Jehoahaz was of three and twenty years, when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremy of Libnah.
32 And he did evil before the Lord, by all things which his fathers had done.
33 And Pharaoh Necho bound him in prison in Riblah, that is in the land of Hamath, that he should not reign in Jerusalem; and Pharaoh set a pain, either a fine, to the land of Judah, in an hundred talents of silver, and in one talent of gold.
34 And Pharaoh Necho made king Eliakim, the son of Josiah, for Josiah, his father; and he turned the name of him to Jehoiakim; forsooth Pharaoh took Jehoahaz, and led him into Egypt, and he died there.
35 Soothly Jehoiakim gave silver and gold to Pharaoh, when he had com-manded to the land by all years, that it should be brought, by the command-ment of Pharaoh; and Jehoiakim raised of each man by his mights, or after his power, both silver and gold, of the people of the land, that he should give to Pharaoh Necho.
36 Jehoiakim was of five and twenty years, when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 And he did evil before the Lord, by all things which his fathers had done.
* CHAPTER 23:30 Also known as Joahaz.