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New Testament
2 Kings 23:4-20
Josiah Cleanses the Land
4Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the lower-ranking priests, and the gatekeepers that they should remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles which had been made for Baal, for Asherah, and for the whole army of the heavens.[] He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley, and he took the ashes to Bethel. 5He removed the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense at the high places[] in the cities of Judah and in the area around Jerusalem, those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to the whole army of the heavens. 6He took the Asherah pole from the House of the Lord to the Kidron Valley, outside of Jerusalem. He burned it there. He crushed it to dust and scattered the dust on the graves of the common people. 7He tore down the houses of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the House of the Lord, where women were weaving hangings for Asherah.
8Then he brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had been burning incense, from Gibeah to Beersheba. He tore down the high places by the gates, which were at the entrance to the Gate of Joshua, who was the official over the city. This gate was to the left of the main gate to the city. 9The priests from the high places could not go up to the Lord's altar in Jerusalem, but they were allowed to eat unleavened bread in the midst of their brothers.
10He defiled Tophet, which was in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, so that no one could make his son or daughter pass through the fire for Molek. 11He removed the horses, which the kings of Judah had set up for the sun, from the entrance to the Lord's house. They were near the office of Nathan Melek, the high official, which was in the temple courtyard. Then he burned the chariots of the sun.
12The king tore down the altars that were on the roof of the chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord. He smashed them and threw the dust into the Kidron Valley. 13The king defiled the high places which were east of Jerusalem on the south end of the Mount of Corruption,[] which Solomon king of Israel had made for Ashtarte, the detestable goddess of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and for Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. 14He smashed the sacred memorial stones to bits, and he cut down the Asherah poles. Then he filled their sites with human bones.
15Even the altar which was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam son of Nebat had made, which caused Israel to sin—he pulled down even that altar and its high place. Then he burned the high place. He ground the Asherah pole to powder and burned it.
16Then Josiah turned and saw the graves that were there on the hill. He sent men and took the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar. So he defiled it in fulfillment of the word of the Lord, which the man of God ˻proclaimed, when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the feast.
Then he turned and raised his eyes to the tomb of the man of God˼[] who proclaimed these things, 17and he asked, “What is that gravestone which I see over there?”
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 are doing against the altar of Bethel.”
18Then he said, “Leave him alone. Let no one disturb his bones.” So they spared his bones along with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. 19Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places which the kings of Israel had made in the cities of Samaria, which provoked the Lord[] to anger. He did to them just as he did in Bethel. 20On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places who were present there, and he burned human bones on the altars. Then he went back to Jerusalem.
Footnotes
- 23:4 That is, the stars and other celestial bodies
- 23:5 A high place is a shrine smaller than a temple. High places were often open-air shrines, located near the city gate or on a nearby hill. These high places were not necessarily dedicated to heathen gods, but after the dedication of the temple all of the high places dedicated to the Lord became illegitimate.
- 23:13 This refers to the southern end of the Mount of Olives.
- 23:16 The words in half-brackets are not in the Hebrew text but are in the Greek Old Testament. The words man of God and proclaimed occur near the beginning and end of the additional words.
- 23:19 The translation follows the ancient versions. The Hebrew text does not have the words the Lord.