The chat will start when you send the first message.
1Then the king sent them away and they gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him.
2The king went up to the house of the Lord , and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that was found in the house of the Lord .[#Dt 31:10–13; 2Ki 22:8]
3The king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord , to keep His commandments, His testimonies, and His statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people agreed with the covenant.[#2Ki 11:14; #2Ki 11:17]
4The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the implements that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. Then he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.[#2Ki 21:3, 7]
5Then he removed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
6He brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord to the outside of Jerusalem, to the Kidron Valley. Then he burned it at the Kidron Valley, crushed it to dust, and threw its dust upon the graves of the people.[#2Ki 23:15; 2Ch 34:4]
7He tore down the houses of the male cult prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord , where the women were weaving hangings for the Asherah.[#1Ki 14:24; 15:12]
8He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba. He broke down the high places of the gates at the entry of the gates of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city.[#Jos 21:17; 1Ki 15:22]
9However the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem. Instead they ate unleavened bread among their fellow priests.[#Eze 44:10–14]
10He defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that no man would make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.[#Isa 30:33; Jer 7:31–32; #Lev 18:21]
11He removed the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entry of the house of the Lord , by the hall of Nathan-melech the eunuch, which was in the vestibule. The chariots of the sun he burned with fire.[#Eze 8:16]
12The altars that were on the roof 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 the king tore down and banished from there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.[#Jer 19:13; #2Ki 21:5]
13The high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, the king defiled.[#1Ki 11:5, 7]
14He broke the standing stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their sites with human bones.[#Ex 23:24; Dt 7:5]
15Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he tore down. Then he burned the high place and crushed it to powder, and he burned the Asherah.[#1Ki 14:16]
16As Josiah turned, he saw the tombs that were there on the mount. He took the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar and defiled it, according to the word of the Lord that the man of God proclaimed, the one who announced these things.
17Then he said, “What is this monument that I see?”
The men of the city said to him, “It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.”
18He said, “Let him rest. No one shall disturb his bones.” So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.[#1Ki 13:31]
19Moreover, all the houses 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 removed. He did to them just as he had done in Bethel.[#2Ch 34:6–7]
20He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.[#Ex 22:20; 2Ki 11:18]
21The king commanded all the people, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”[#Dt 16:1–8]
22For such a Passover had not been kept from the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
23But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.
24Moreover, Josiah disposed of the mediums, the soothsayers, the teraphim, the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord .[#Lev 19:31; 2Ki 21:6; #Ge 31:19; Jdg 17:5; 1Sa 19:13; Hos 3:4; Zec 10:2]
25Now there had been no king like him before or after, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses.[#2Ki 18:5]
26However, the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, by which His anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him.[#2Ki 21:11–13; 24:4]
27The Lord said, “I will also remove Judah from before Me, as I have removed Israel. I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.”[#2Ki 18:11; #2Ki 21:13]
28Now the rest of the deeds of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
29In his days Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the Euphrates River. King Josiah went to meet him, but he killed him at Megiddo when he had seen him.[#Jer 46:2; #Jdg 5:19; 2Ch 35:20–24]
30His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.[#2Ki 9:28; #2Ch 36:1–4]
31Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.[#1Ch 3:15; #2Ki 24:18]
32He did evil in the sight of the Lord , according to all that his fathers had done.[#2Ki 21:2–7]
33Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed tribute on the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.[#2Ki 25:6; #1Ki 8:65; #23:33 About 33/4 tons, or 3.4 metric tons.; #23:33 About 75 pounds, or 34 kilograms.]
34Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz away and went to Egypt, and he died there.[#2Ki 24:17; #Eze 19:3–4]
35Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to Pharaoh’s demand. According to an assessed amount, he exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land to give to Pharaoh Necho.[#2Ki 23:33]
36Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king. He reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.[#2Ch 36:5]
37He did evil in the sight of the Lord , according to all that his fathers had done.