Open English Translation 2KI Chapter 23

23 Then King Yoshiyyah summoned all the elders of Yerushalem and across Yehudah, 2 and he went to the temple and all the inhabitants of Yerushalem and from all across Yehudah went with him, along with the priests and prophets, and all the people from the most to the least important. Then he read to them every word on the scroll of the agreement that had been found in Yahweh’s residence. 3 Then the king stood by the pillar and he made a commitment in front of Yahweh to follow Yahweh and to obey his commandments and testimonies and statutes with all sincerity, and with every desire to respect the words of that agreement that had been written on that scroll. All the people were also included in that commitment.

4 Then the king commanded the high priest Hilkiyyah and the other priests, and the temple guards to bring out all the utensils that were made for Baal and Asherah and for all the constellations, and he burnt them outside Yerushalem in the Kidron countryside, and carried their ashes to Beyt-El. 5 He got rid of the pagan priests that the kings of Yehudah had appointed to burn incense in the hilltop shrines around Yerushalem and across the rest of Yehudah, and the ones who burnt incense to Baal, and to the sun and moon and to the planets and constellations. 6 He got the Asherah pole out from Yahweh’s temple and burnt it in the Kidron valley outside Yerushalem, then he pounded the ashes to dust and threw it over people’s graves. 7 He demolished the cubicles of the male temple prostitutes that were inside Yahweh’s temple where the women were weaving Asherah coverings.[fn] 8 He brought all the priests to Yerushalem from the cities of Yehudah, and he desecrated the hilltop shrines where the priests had burnt incense, from Geba to Beer-Sheva. He demolished the hilltop shrines that Yehoshua (a city official) had built near the city gate (on the left of the gate as you entered the city). 9 However those priests from those hilltop shrines weren’t allowed to serve at the altar in Yerushalem, but they were allowed to eat unleavened bread like the other priests.

10 Yoshiyyah also desecrated the Tofet, which was in the Ben-Hinnom valley, so that the people couldn’t sacrifice their children to Molek. 11 The horses that the kings of Yehudah had offered to the sun, he prevented from approaching the hall of the official Natan-Melek that was in the courtyards of Yahweh’s temple, and he set fire to the chariots of the sun. 12 Then the king tore down the altars that were on the roof in the Ahaz’s upper chamber that the kings of Yehudah made, and the altars that Manasseh made in the two courts of Yahweh’s temple and he threw the rubble into the Kidron valley. 13 The king desecrated the hilltop shrines that faced Yerushalem—they were south of the ‘Mount of Destruction’ (the Mount of Olives). King Shelomoh had built shrines for Ashtarot (the disgusting god of the Sidonians) and for Kemosh (the disgusting god of Moab) and for Molek (the disgusting god of the Ammonites. 14 He also smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles, then he desecrated those places by filling them with human bones.

15 He also demolished the altar that was in Bayt-El—the hilltop shrinee that Nebat’s son Yarave’am had made when he’d caused Israel to sin. He demolished both that altar and the hilltop shrine, then he burnt the shrine. He crushed everything to dust, and he burnt the Asherah pole. 16 As Yoshiyyah turned around, he noticed some graves that were there on the hillside, so he had some bones removed from the graves, and he burnt them on the altar to desecrate it. This fulfilled what Yahweh had said through the man of God who’d proclaimed these things.[ref] 17 Yoshiyyah turned again and asked, “Whose tomb is that?”

“It’s the prophet’s tomb,” the people of Beyt-El replied, “The one who came from Yehudah and predicted that what you just did to that altar would happen.” 18 “Don’t disturb it then,” the king ordered. “Don’t let anyone remove his bones.”

So They left his bones alone, along with the bones of the other prophet who came from Samaria. 19 So King Yoshiyyah removed all the hilltop shrines that the Israeli kings had made in the cities of Samaria, provoking Yahweh’s anger. The king destroyed them just like he’d done to the ones in Beyt-El. 20 He executed all the priests from those hilltop shrines on the altars there, and then he burnt human bones on them to desecrate them. Then he returned to Yerushalem.

21 Then the king commanded all the people, “Celebrate ‘pass-over’ for your God Yahweh according to what’s written on this scroll with the agreement.” 22 Since the days of the leaders who judged Israel, or in all the days of the kings of Israel and Yehudah, a ‘pass-over’ had never been celebrated like that one 23 in the eighteenth year of King Yoshiyyah’s reign. That ‘pass-over’ celebration in Yerushalem was to honour Yahweh.

24 King Yoshiyyah also removed the ritual pits and the soothsayers, and the images and idols, and all the abhorrences that were seen in Yerushalem and in the Yehudah region, in his diligence to obey everything that was written on the scroll that the priest Hilkiyyah found in the temple. 25 No other king had been like Yoshiyyah who’d led the people back to obeying Yahweh—following Mosheh’s written instructions with all his heart and all his spirit and all his energy. What’s more, there’s never been a king like him since then either.

26 However, Yahweh’s anger against Yehudah hadn’t cooled down after everything that King Menashsheh had done[ref] to make him angry, 27 and Yahweh said, “I will also remove Yehudah out of my sight, just like I removed Israel. I’ll also reject this city of Yerushalem that I chose, as well as the house where I’d said that my name would be established.”

28 Everything else that Yoshiyyah said and did is written in the book of the events of the kings of Yehudah. 29 While he was still king, the Egyptian king Far-oh Nekoh attacked the Assyrian king near the Euphrates River. King Yoshiyyah went to meet him, but Nekoh killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. 30 His servants brought his body back to Yerushalem from Megiddo, and they buried him in his own tomb. Then the people got his son Yehoahaz, and they anointed him and made him king in place of his father.

31 Yehoahaz was twenty-three when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for only three months. (His mother was Yirmeyah’s daughter Hamutal from Livnah.) 32 He did what Yahweh had said was evil like many of his ancestors had done. 33 Far-oh Nekoh took him from Yerushalem and imprisoned him at Rivlah in the Hamat region, and he forced the residents ot Yehudah to pay him thirty kilograms of gold and three tonnes of silver. 34 Then Nekoh appointed Yoshiyyah’s son Elyakim as the new king but changed his name to Yehoyakim. Then he took Yehoahaz to Egypt where he eventually died. 35 So Yehoyakim paid the gold and silver to Far-oh by assessing the wealth of the people and then forcibly collecting the gold and silver from them to send to Far-oh Nekoh.

36 Yehoyakim was twenty-five when he became king, and he reigned from Yerushalem for eleven years. (His mother was Pedayah’s daughter Zebudah from Rumah.) 37 He did what Yahweh had said was evil like many of his ancestors had done.