2Kings:23
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And the king sent .
And they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem .
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And the king went up into the house of the LORD .
And all the men of Judah and all the people of Jerusalem with him ,
and the priests and the prophets ,
and all the people ,
from the small even to the great .
And he read all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD in their ears .
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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 [
his ]
heart and all [
his soul ,
to perform the words of this covenant which was written in this Book .
And all the people stood to the covenant .
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And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest ,
and the priests of the second order ,
and the doorkeepers ,
to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels which were made for Baal ,
and for the Asherah ,
and for all the host of heaven .
And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron ,
and carried the ashes of them to Bethel .
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And he put down the idol-worshiping priests ,
whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn [
incense ]
in the high places in the cities of Judah ,
and in the places around Jerusalem .
He also put down those who burned incense to Baal ,
to the sun ,
and to the moon ,
and to the planets ,
and to all the host of the heavens .
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And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD outside Jerusalem ,
to the torrent Kidron ,
and burned it at the torrent Kidron ,
and stamped [
it ]
to powder ,
and threw the powder of it on the graves of the sons of the people .
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And he broke down the houses of the sodomites ,
which [
were ]
by the house of the LORD ,
where the women wove coverings for the Asherah .
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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 Beer-sheba .
And he broke down the high places of the gates which [
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 .
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But the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem ,
but they ate of the unleavened [
bread ]
among their brothers .
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And he defiled Topheth ,
in the valley of the sons of Hinnom ,
so that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech .
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And he took away the horses which the kings of Judah had given to the sun ,
at the entering in of the house of the LORD ,
by the room of Nathan-melech the eunuch ,
which [
was ]
in the suburbs .
And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire .
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And the altars which [
were ]
on the top of the upper room of Ahaz ,
which the kings of Judah had made ,
and the altars which Manasseh had made ,
and the two courts of the house of the LORD ,
the king beat them down ,
and broke them down from there .
And he threw the dust of them into the torrent Kidron .
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And the high places which [
were ]
before Jerusalem on the right hand of the Mount of Corruption ,
which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians ,
and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites ,
and for Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon ,
the king defiled .
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And he broke the images in pieces ,
and cut down the Asherahs ,
and filled their places with the bones of men .
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And also the altar which [
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 broke down ,
and burned the high place ;
he stamped it to powder ,
and burned the Asherah .
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And as Josiah turned ,
he spied the tombs which [
were ]
there in the mountain .
And he sent and took the bones out of the tombs ,
and burned [
them ]
on the altar and defiled it ,
according to the word of the LORD which the man of God had proclaimed ,
who spoke these words .
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And he said ,
What monument [
is ]
that which I see ?
And the men of the city told him , [
It is ]
the grave of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which you have done against the altar of Bethel .
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And he said ,
Let him alone ;
let no one move his bones .
And they let his bones alone ,
with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria .
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And also all the houses of the high places 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 which he had done in Bethel .
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And he killed all the priests of the high places [
which were ]
there on the altars ,
and burned men '
s bones on them ,
and returned to Jerusalem .
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And the king commanded all the people saying ,
Prepare the Passover to the LORD your God ,
as [
it is ]
written in the Book of the Covenant .
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Surely there was not held such a Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel ,
nor in all the days of the kings of Israel ,
nor of the kings of Judah ,
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but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah ,
this Passover was held to the LORD in Jerusalem .
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And also Josiah put away the mediums ,
and the soothsayers ,
and the family gods ,
and the idols ,
and all the abominations which were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem ,
so that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book which Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD .
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And there was no king like him before him ,
who 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 .
And after him none rose up like him .
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But the Lord did not turn from the heat of His great wrath ,
with which His anger was kindled against Judah ,
because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him .
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And the LORD said ,
I will also remove Judah 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 .
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And the rest of the acts of Josiah ,
and all that he did , [
are ]
they not written in the Book of the Matters of the Days of the Kings of Judah ?
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In his days Pharaoh-necho king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates .
And King Josiah went against him .
And he killed him at Megiddo ,
when he saw him .
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And his servants made him ride dead in a chariot from Megiddo ,
and brought him to Jerusalem ,
and buried him in his own tomb .
And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah ,
and anointed him ,
and made him king in his father '
s place .
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Jehoahaz [
was ]
twenty-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 .
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And he did the evil in the sight of the LORD ,
according to all that his fathers had done .
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And Pharaoh-necho put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath ,
so that he might not reign in Jerusalem .
And he put the land to a tax of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold .
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And Pharaoh-necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father .
And he changed his name to Jehoiakim ,
and took Jehoahaz away .
And he came to Egypt and died there .
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And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh .
But he taxed the land to give the silver according to Pharaoh '
s command .
He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land ,
from each one according to his worth ,
to give it to Pharaoh-necho .
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Jehoiakim [
was ]
twenty-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 .
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And he did the evil in the sight of the LORD ,
according to all that his fathers had done .