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 Beer-sheba, 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 Nathan-melech
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 Pharaoh-nechoh 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.
[31] Jehoahaz was twenty and