1 Then the king sent word, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered to him.
2 The king went up to the LORD's house with all the men of Judah and all who lived in Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets and all the people, from the least to the greatest. He read aloud to them all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the LORD's house.
3 The king stood beside the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD to follow the LORD and keep his commandments, testimonies and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and so to carry out the words of this covenant written in this book. All the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of second rank and the doorkeepers to take out of the LORD's temple all the articles made for Baal, for Asherah and for the whole host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and took the ashes to Bethel.
5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense at the high places in the towns of Judah and around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to the whole host of heaven.
6 He took the Asherah out of the LORD's house to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, burned it there in the Kidron Valley, ground it to powder and scattered the powder over the graves of the common people.
7 He pulled down the quarters of the male cult prostitutes, which were in the LORD's house, where women wove hangings for Asherah.
8 He brought all the priests in from the towns of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He broke down the high places at the gates, the ones at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, on the left as one goes through the city gate.
9 The priests of the high places did not go up to the LORD's altar in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened bread among their brothers.
10 He defiled Topheth in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom so that no one could make a son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
11 He did away with the horses the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the LORD's house near the room of an official named Nathan-melech in the precincts, and he burned the chariots of the sun.
12 The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the LORD's house. He smashed them there and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.
13 The king also defiled the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.
14 He shattered the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherim and covered the sites with human bones.
15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, even that altar and high place he pulled down. He burned the high place, ground it to powder and burned the Asherah.
16 Then Josiah looked around and saw the tombs there on the hillside. He had the bones taken out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, defiling it, as the LORD had said through the man of God who foretold these things.
17 "What is that marker I see?" the king asked. The men of the town told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel."
18 "Leave it alone," he said. "Do not let anyone disturb his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19 Josiah also removed all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria that the kings of Israel had built, provoking the LORD. He did to them just what he had done at Bethel.
20 He slaughtered all the priests of those high places on their altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.
21 The king gave this order to all the people: "Celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant."
22 No Passover like it had been celebrated since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
23 It was in King Josiah's eighteenth year that this Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24 Josiah also got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other abominations seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to carry out the words of the law written in the book Hilkiah the priest had found in the LORD's house.
25 Before him there was no king like him who turned to the LORD with all his heart, all his soul and all his strength, following the whole law of Moses, and none like him arose after him.
26 Even so, the LORD did not turn back from the fierceness of his great wrath, which burned against Judah for all the ways Manasseh had provoked him.
27 The LORD said, "I will remove Judah from my presence too, as I removed Israel. I will reject this city I chose, Jerusalem, and the house where I said my name would be."
28 As for the rest of the deeds of Josiah and all he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
29 During his reign Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah marched out to confront him, and as soon as Neco saw him, he killed him at Megiddo.
30 His servants carried his body by chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him and made him king in his father's place.
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done.
33 Pharaoh Neco put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed on the land a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
34 Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz he took away; he went to Egypt and died there.
35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh's demand he had to tax the land. He collected the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his assessment, to pay Pharaoh Neco.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done.