1The king sent and gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.2And the king went up to 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 from small to great. And he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD.3The king stood by the pillar and cut the covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments, his testimonies, and his statutes with all their heart and with all their soul, to establish the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.4And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second rank and Shomer the keeper of the threshold to bring out from the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal and for the Asherah and for all the host of the heavens. And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and he carried their dust to Bethel.5He abolished the priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed and who made incense offerings on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places around Jerusalem, and those who made offerings with incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.6He brought the Asherah out from the house of the LORD to the outside of Jerusalem, to the Brook Kidron. He burned it in the Brook Kidron, ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people.7And he broke down the houses of the holy places that were in the house of the LORD, where the women were weaving houses there for the Asherah.8He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba. He tore down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which is on the left as a man enters the city gate.9However, the priests of the high places shall not go up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they shall eat unleavened bread among their brothers.10And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, so that no one could pass his son or daughter through the fire to Molech.11He stationed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the eunuch, which was in the precincts. And he burned the chariots of the sun in fire.12The altars that were on the roof, the upper chambers of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, the king broke down, removed from there, and threw their dust into the Brook Kidron.13And the high places that are on the face of Jerusalem, that are to the right of the Mount of Destruction, that Solomon king of Israel built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Milcom the detestable thing of the sons of Ammon—the king defiled.14And he broke the standing stones and cut the Asherah poles and filled their place with bones of humanity.15He also tore down the altar that was at Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat made, the one who caused Israel to sin—that altar and high place. He burned the high place, pulverized it to dust, and burned the Asherah.16Josiah turned and saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. He sent and took the bones from the tombs, burned them on the altar, and defiled it according to the word of the LORD that the man of God had proclaimed, who had called out these words.17He said, "What is that monument I see?" And the men of the city said to him, "It is the burial site of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things against the altar at Bethel."18He said, "Leave him alone; no man shall disturb his bones." They spared his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.19He also removed the houses of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria that the kings of Israel had made to provoke anger. And he did to them just like all the deeds that he had done at Bethel.20He sacrificed the priests of the high places who were there upon the altars, burned human bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.21The king commanded all the people, saying, "Keep the Passover to the LORD your God as it is written in this book of the covenant."22For no Passover like this one was done from the days of the judges who judged Israel, all the days of the kings of Israel, and the kings of Judah.23for only in the eighteenth year of King Josiah was this Passover done to the LORD in Jerusalem.24Moreover, Josiah burned the mediums, the familiar spirits, the teraphim, the idols, and all the detestable things that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to eradicate them and to fulfill the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.25No king before him was like him, who returned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Torah of Moses; and none arose like him after him.26However, the LORD did not turn from the great fierceness of his anger, with which his anger burned against Judah over all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him.27And the LORD said, "I will remove Judah from my presence, just as I removed Israel, and I will reject this city that I chose—Jerusalem—and the house about which I said, 'My name will be there.'"28And the rest of the words of Josiah and all that he did—are they not written in the Book of the words of the days for the kings of Judah?29In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates, and King Josiah went to meet him. He killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.30And his servants carried him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.