Melaḵim Bĕt (2 Kings) 23

¹And the sovereign sent, and they gathered all the elders of Yehuḏah and Yerushalayim to him.

²And the sovereign went up to the House of יהוה with all the men of Yehuḏah, and all the inhabitants of Yerushalayim with him, and the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the House of יהוה.

³And the sovereign stood by the column and made a covenant before יהוה, to follow יהוה and to guard His commands and His witnesses and His laws, with all his heart and all his being, to establish the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

⁴Then the sovereign commanded Ḥilqiyahu the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring out of the Hĕḵal of יהוה all the objects that were made for Ba‛al, and for Ashĕrah, and for all the host of the heavens. And he burned them outside Yerushalayim in the fields of Qiḏron, and took their ashes to Bĕyth Ěl.

⁵And he put down the black-robed priests whom the sovereigns of Yehuḏah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Yehuḏah and in the places all around Yerushalayim, and those who burned incense to Ba‛al, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of the heavens.[#Heb. kemarim.]

⁶And he brought out the Ashĕrah from the House of יהוה, to the wadi Qiḏron outside Yerushalayim, and burned it at the wadi Qiḏron and ground it to ashes, and threw its ashes on the burial-sites of the sons of the people.

⁷And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes that were in the House of יהוה, where the women wove tapestries for the Ashĕrah.

⁸And he brought all the priests from the cities of Yehuḏah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geḇa to Be’ĕrsheḇa, and broke down the high places at the gates which were at the entrance of the Gate of Yehoshua the governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate.

⁹However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the slaughter-place of יהוה in Yerushalayim, but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.

¹⁰And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, so that no man could make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moleḵ.

¹¹And he did away with the horses that the sovereigns of Yehuḏah had given to the sun, at the entrance to the House of יהוה, by the room of Nathan-Meleḵ the eunuch, that were in the court. And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

¹²And the slaughter-places that were on the roof of the upper room of Aḥaz, which the sovereigns of Yehuḏah had made, and the slaughter-places which Menashsheh had made in the two courtyards of the House of יהוה, the sovereign broke down, and rushed from there, and threw their dust into the wadi Qiḏron.

¹³And the sovereign defiled the high places that were before Yerushalayim, which were on the right hand of the Mountain of Destruction, which Shelomoh sovereign of Yisra’ĕl built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Tsiḏonians, and for Kemosh the abomination of the Mo’aḇites, and for Milkom the abomination of the children of Ammon.

¹⁴And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Ashĕrim, and filled their places with the bones of men.

¹⁵And also the slaughter-place that was at Bĕyth Ěl, and the high place which Yaroḇ‛am son of Neḇat made, by which he made Yisra’ĕl sin, both that slaughter-place and the high place he broke down. And he burned the high place and ground it to dust, and burned the Ashĕrah.

¹⁶Then Yoshiyahu turned, and saw the burial-sites that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took the bones out of the burial-sites and burned them on the slaughter-place, and defiled it according to the word of יהוה which the man of Elohim proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.

¹⁷And he said, “What tombstone is this that I see?” And the men of the city said to him, “It is the burial-site of the man of Elohim who came from Yehuḏah and proclaimed these matters which you have done against the slaughter-place of Bĕyth Ěl.”

¹⁸And he said, “Let him alone, let no one move his bones.” So they left his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Shomeron.

¹⁹And Yoshiyahu also took away all the houses of the high places that were in the cities of Shomeron, which the sovereigns of Yisra’ĕl had made to provoke. And he did to them according to all the deeds he did in Bĕyth Ěl.

²⁰And he slaughtered all the priests of the high places who were there, on the slaughter-places, and burned men’s bones on them, and went back to Yerushalayim.

²¹And the sovereign commanded all the people, saying, “Prepare the Pĕsaḥ to יהוה your Elohim, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”

²²For such a Pĕsaḥ had not been prepared since the days of the rulers who ruled Yisra’ĕl, nor in all the days of the sovereigns of Yisra’ĕl and the sovereigns of Yehuḏah,

²³but in the eighteenth year of Sovereign Yoshiyahu this Pĕsaḥ was prepared before יהוה in Yerushalayim.

²⁴And also, Yoshiyahu put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists, and the household mighty ones and idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Yehuḏah and in Yerushalayim, in order to establish the words of the Torah which were written in the book that Ḥilqiyahu the priest found in the House of יהוה.

²⁵And before him there was no sovereign like him, who turned back to יהוה with all his heart, and with all his being, and with all his might, according to all the Torah of Mosheh; and after him none rose up like him.

²⁶However, יהוה did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His wrath burned against Yehuḏah, because of all the provocations with which Menashsheh had provoked Him.

²⁷And יהוה said, “Even Yehuḏah I shall remove from My presence, as I have removed Yisra’ĕl, and I shall reject this city Yerushalayim which I have chosen, and the House of which I said, ‘My Name is there.’ ”

²⁸And the rest of the acts of Yoshiyahu, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the sovereigns of Yehuḏah?

²⁹In his days Pharaoh Neḵo sovereign of Mitsrayim went up against the sovereign of Ashshur, to the River Euphrates. And Sovereign Yoshiyahu went out to him, and he killed him at Meḡiddo when he saw him.

³⁰And his servants conveyed his body in a chariot from Meḡiddo, and brought him to Yerushalayim, and buried him in his own burial-place. And the people of the land took Yeho’aḥaz son of Yoshiyahu, and anointed him, and set him up to reign in his father’s place.

³¹Yeho’aḥaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three new moons in Yerushalayim. And his mother’s name was Ḥamutal the daughter of Yirmeyahu of Liḇnah.

³²And he did evil in the eyes of יהוה, according to all that his fathers did.

³³And Pharaoh Neḵo imprisoned him at Riblah in the land of Ḥamath, to keep him from reigning in Yerushalayim. And he imposed on the land a fine of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

³⁴And Pharaoh Neḵo set up Elyaqim son of Yoshiyahu to reign in place of his father Yoshiyahu, and changed his name to Yehoyaqim. And Pharaoh took Yeho’aḥaz and went to Mitsrayim, and he died there.

³⁵And Yehoyaqim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh. Only, he taxed the land to give silver according to the mouth of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, from every one according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neḵo.

³⁶Yehoyaqim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Yerushalayim. And his mother’s name was Zeḇiḏah the daughter of Peḏayah of Rumah.

³⁷And he did evil in the eyes of יהוה, according to all that his fathers did.