Josiah reads the book of the covenant to the people and leads a thorough reform, destroying idols and high places and celebrating the Passover. He dies at Megiddo fighting Pharaoh Necho, and his son Jehoahaz is deposed.
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.
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 the LORD , according to all that his fathers had done .
33 And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath , that he might not reign in Jerusalem ; and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver , and a talent of gold .
34 And Pharaohnechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father , and turned his name to Jehoiakim , and 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 unto Pharaohnechoh .
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 Zebudah , the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah .
37 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD , according to all that his fathers had done .