1. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned thirty and one years in Jerusalem. And his mother's
name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Boscath.
2. And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD,
and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned
not aside to the right hand or to the left.
3. And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah,
that the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of
Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the LORD, saying,
4. Go up to Hilkiah the high priest, that he may sum the silver
which is brought into the house of the LORD, which the
keepers of the door have gathered of the people:
5. And let them deliver it into the hand of the doers of the
work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD: and
let them give it to the doers of the work which is in the
house of the LORD, to repair the breaches of the house,
6. Unto carpenters, and builders, and masons, and to buy timber
and hewn stone to repair the house.
7. Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money
that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt
faithfully.
8. And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I
have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And
Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
9. And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the
king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the
money that was found in the house, and have delivered it
into the hand of them that do the work, that have the
oversight of the house of the LORD.
10. And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the
priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before
the king.
11. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of
the book of the law, that he rent his clothes.
12. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the
son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan
the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying,
13. Go ye, enquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and
for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is
found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled
against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the
words of this book, to do according unto all that which is
written concerning us.
14. So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan,
and Asahiah, went unto Huldah the prophetess, the wife of
Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the
wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and
they communed with her.
15. And she said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel,
Tell the man that sent you to me,
16. Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this
place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the words
of the book which the king of Judah hath read:
17. Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto
other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the
works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled
against this place, and shall not be quenched.
18. But to the king of Judah which sent you to enquire of the
LORD, thus shall ye say to him, Thus saith the LORD God of
Israel, As touching the words which thou hast heard;
19. Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled
thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake
against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof,
that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast
rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard
thee, saith the LORD.
20. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and
thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine
eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this
place. And they brought the king word again.
Chapter 23
1. And the king 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 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 the
LORD.
3. And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before
the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his
commandments 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
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 door, to
bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels
that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the
host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the
fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
5. And he put down the 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 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 grove 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 upon the graves of the children of the
people.
7. And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by
the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings 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 Geba to Beersheba, 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 priests 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 Topheth, which is in the valley of the
children 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 entering in of the house of the
LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which
was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with
fire.
12. And the altars that were on the top 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
the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from
thence, 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 corruption, which Solomon
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 brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves,
and filled their places with the bones of men.
15. Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place
which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who 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 burned 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 the sepulchre of the man of God,
which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou
hast done against the altar of Bethel.
18. And he said, Let him alone; 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 the Lord to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them
according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.
20. And he slew all the priests of the high places that were
there upon the altars, and burned men's bones upon them, and
returned to Jerusalem.
21. And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the
passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the
book of this covenant.
22. Surely there was not holden 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, wherein this
passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24. Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards,
and the images, 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 like unto him was there no king before him, that turned
to the LORD with all 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 the LORD turned not from the fierceness of
his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against
Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had
provoked him withal.
27. And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight,
as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city
Jerusalem which I have chosen, 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 Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt went up against the
king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went
against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen
him.
30. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo,
and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own
sepulchre. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son
of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his
father's stead.
