UST 2 KI Chapter 23

◄ 2 KI 23 ► ║ ═ ©

23 King Josiah then sent messengers to summon all the elders of Jerusalem and of the other places in the kingdom of Judah. 2 Those elders, along with many ordinary people from Judah and Jerusalem, gathered in the temple courtyard with the king. Many priests and prophets also came. A great crowd representing all the kinds of people in the city was there. While they all listened, the king read to them from the scroll that had been in the temple. He all of the laws that Yahweh had given the Israelites when he made his solemn agreement with them. 3 Then the king stood next to a pillar on the temple porch and he made a solemn agreement with Yahweh that he would live as Yahweh wanted him to live. He promised to obey all of Yahweh’s laws sincerely and devotedly. In that way, the solemn agreement that the scroll from the temple described became the law of Israel once again. The Judean people who had gathered at the temple courtyard promised to obey that solemn agreement.

4 Then the king gave a command to the high priest Hilkiah, the other leading priests, and the priests who supervised the courtyard entrance. He told them to remove from the temple all the objects that people had been using to worship Baal, Asherah, and the sun, moon, and stars. They took those outside the city to the Kidron Valley and burned them completely there. Then they took all the ashes to the city of Bethel. 5 Previous kings of Judah had appointed many pagan priests to burn incense at hilltop shrines near many cities in Judah and in the area around Jerusalem. Those priests had been offering sacrifices to Baal and to the sun, moon, and stars. King Josiah stopped them from doing those things. 6 Josiah ordered his servants to remove the pole for the worship of the goddess Asherah that was inside the temple building. He told them to take it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley and burn it. He ordered them to pound the ashes to powder and scatter the powder in a graveyard for ordinary people that was in that area. 7 There were male prostitutes living in small houses near the temple. In those houses, women also wove articles that people used in the worship of Asherah. Josiah tore down those houses and ended the activities that took place in them. 8 Josiah also brought to Jerusalem all the priests who had been burning incense at hilltop shrines near other cities in Judah. He ordered his servants to demolish all of those hilltop shrines, everywhere in his kingdom. There were similar shrines in Jerusalem near the gate of Joshua, the governor of Jerusalem. That gate was to the left of the main city gate. Josiah ordered his servants to destroy those shrines as well. 9 (Josiah did not allow the priests he had brought to Jerusalem from the hilltop shrines to offer sacrifices on the altar in the temple courtyard in Jerusalem. But he did allow them to eat the food that the priests received as their share of sacrifices that people brought.) 10 There was a place that people called Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom where people used to burn their children as sacrifices to the false god Molech. Josiah had his servants destroy that place so that no one would do that anymore. 11 Previous kings of Judah had dedicated horses to pull chariots in processions in honor of the sun. There were stables for those horses near the entrance to the temple. A royal official whose name was Nathan Melech was responsible for the horses, and he lived in an apartment near the stables. King Josiah had his servants take the horses away from the temple and destroy the chariots by burning them. 12 Previous kings of Judah had built altars for worshiping the sun, moon, and stars on the palace roof. They were near the room that King Ahaz had made for himself. King Manasseh had also built altars in the two courtyards in the temple area. Josiah commanded his servants to destroy all those altars. He told them to take the debris from the altars away quickly and throw it down into the Kidron Valley. 13 King Solomon had built shrines east of Jerusalem, on the south side of the Mount of Destruction, for the disgusting gods that other people groups worshiped. He built a shrine for Ashtoreth, whom the Sidonians worshiped. He built one for Chemosh, whom the Moabites worshiped. And he built one for Milcom, whom the Ammonites worshiped. Josiah commanded his servants to ruin those shrines. 14 He also had them smash the stone pillars that represented Baal. He had them cut down and burn the poles that people had set up for worshiping the goddess Asherah. And he had them scatter human bones on the ground there to make those places ritually unclean.

15 Jeroboam son of Nebat had made an altar and a shrine at Bethel. He had influenced the Israelites to sin by worshiping idols when he did that. Josiah had his servants tear down the altar and the shrine, and he had them burn the shrine and crush what remained into dust. He also had them burn the pole that people had been using to worship Asherah. 16 Then Josiah looked around and saw some tombs on a nearby hill. He commanded his servants to take bones out of those tombs and burn them on the altar. This made the altar ritually unclean. Josiah did exactly what Yahweh had told a prophet many years before to say would happen. 17 Then Josiah saw a tomb and asked, “Whose tomb is that?” The people of Bethel replied, “It is the tomb of the prophet who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have just done to this altar.” 18 Josiah replied, “Leave the bones of that prophet in his tomb.” So the people did not remove his bones or the bones of the old prophet who had lived in that area and who had deceived the other prophet so that he died. 19 Josiah also ordered his servants to destroy all the hilltop shrines that were near cities in what had been the kingdom of Israel. The kings of Israel had built those shrines and made Yahweh very angry. Josiah had his servants tear down those shrines and burn them and crush the remains and then scatter human bones on the sites, just as he had done to the shrine at Bethel. 20 Josiah also ordered his servants to kill all the priests of those hilltop shrines right on the altars where they had offered sacrifices to false gods. Then he had them burn human bones on those altars so that no one could use them for worship again. After that, Josiah went back to Jerusalem.

21 Then the king commanded the people, “Celebrate the Passover festival to honor Yahweh your God. That is what the Law of Moses says to do every year.” 22 During all the years when the judges ruled Israel, and during all the years when kings reigned in Israel and Judah, the Israelites had not celebrated Passover like that. 23 But now, after Josiah had been ruling for almost 18 years, the people of Jerusalem celebrated this Passover festival to honor Yahweh.

24 Furthermore, Josiah made the people who lived in Jerusalem and in other places in Judah stop doing detestable things. He forbade people to dig pits to try to contact people who had died or to try to talk to spirits that they thought could tell them secret things. He made the people throw away their household idols. He destroyed all the other kinds of idols. Hilkiah the priest had found a scroll in the temple that recorded the law of Moses. Josiah did all those things so that what the scroll recorded would become the law of Israel once again. 25 Josiah sincerely, devotedly, and powerfully led the Judeans to worship Yahweh once again. He obeyed all the laws of Moses. No previous king was as devoted to Yahweh as he was, and no later king was that devoted either.

26 Even so, King Manasseh had done many things that had made Yahweh extremely angry with the people of Judah, and he continued to be very angry. 27 He had said, “I will allow an enemy to take the people of Judah away to a foreign country, just as an enemy took the people of Israel away. And I will reject Jerusalem, the city that I chose to be the place for the temple in which I said people would worship me.”

28 The book in which the kings of Judah recorded what happened during their reigns describes further things that Josiah did. 29 While Josiah was the king of Judah, Pharaoh Neco of Egypt led his army north to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah led his army to fight the army of Egypt. The two armies fought at the city of Megiddo, and Josiah died in the battle there. 30 His soldiers put his body in a chariot and transported it back to Jerusalem. There the Judeans buried him in his own tomb. Then the people of Judah chose Josiah’s son Jehoahaz to be their next king. They poured olive oil on his head to show that they were appointing him as their king.

31 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became the king of Judah, but he ruled from Jerusalem for only three months. His mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah. She was from the city of Libnah. 32 Jehoahaz did many things that Yahweh had told the Israelites were evil, just as many of his ancestors had done. 33 At the city of Riblah in the district of Hamath, Pharaoh Neco made Jehoahaz his prisoner so that he would no longer rule in Jerusalem. Neco then forced the people of Judah to pay to him a tribute of about 3.3 metric tons of silver and 33 kilograms of gold. 34 Pharaoh Neco appointed another son of Josiah, Eliakim, to be the next king of Judah instead. He changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away to Egypt, and later Jehoahaz died there. 35 In order to pay Neco the silver and gold that he had demanded, Jehoiakim collected a tax from the people of Judah. He collected more from the rich people and less from the poor people. After he had collected the silver and gold from them, he paid it to Neco.

36 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became the king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for 11 years. His mother was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah. She was from the city of Rumah. 37 He did many things that Yahweh had told the Israelites were evil, just as many of his ancestors had done.

2 KI C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24 C25

UST 2 KI Chapter 23

UST 2 KI Chapter 23