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¹ And the king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.² And the king went up to the house of Yahweh, 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 Yahweh.³ And the king stood by the pillar, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, 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 threshold, to bring forth out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Beth-el.⁵ And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; those also that burned incense to 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 Asherah from the house of Yahweh, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust, and cast the dust thereof on the graves of the common people.⁷ And he broke down the houses of the homosexuals, that were in the house of Yahweh, where the women wove hangings 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 burned incense, 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 at the gate of the city.⁹ Nevertheless the priests of the high places didn't come up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.¹⁰ And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the sons 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 Yahweh, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, 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 Yahweh, the king broke down, and beat [them] down from there, 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 Olives, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the detestable thing of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the detestable thing of Moab, and for Milcom the disgusting thing of the sons of Ammon, the king defiled.¹⁴ And he broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with man's bones.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 beat it to dust, and burned the Asherah.¹⁶ And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the tombs that were there in the mount; and he sent, and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Yahweh proclaimed by the man of God when Jeroboam stood at the feast on the altar. And he turned and lifted his eyes on the grave of the man of God 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 tomb of the man of God, who came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that you have 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 [Yahweh] to anger, 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, on the altars, and burned man's bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.²¹ And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover to Yahweh your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.²² Surely 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 Yahweh in Jerusalem.²⁴ Moreover the spiritists, and the wizards, and the talismans, and the idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, 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 Yahweh.

²⁵ And like him there was no king before him, that turned to Yahweh with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him did there arise any like him.²⁶ Notwithstanding, Yahweh did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.²⁷ And Yahweh 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 [Pharaoh-necoh] slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.³⁰ And his slaves carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. 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 Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.³³ And Pharaoh-necoh put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.³⁴ And Pharaoh-necoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place 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 to 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 Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.³⁷ And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.