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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /><title>2 Kings 23 NET Bible</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/chapnew2.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; cts.dataset.appid=i;cts.src='https://app.protectsubrev.com/catch_rp.js?cb='+Math.random(); document.head.appendChild(cts); }) (window,document,'head','script','rc-anksrH');</script></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/2_kings/23.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="../topmenuchap/2_kings/23-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="http://biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="../">NET Bible</a> > 2 Kings 23</div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../2_kings/22.htm" title="2 Kings 22">◄</a> 2 Kings 23 <a href="../2_kings/24.htm" title="2 Kings 24">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="99%" valign="top">NET Bible</td><td width="1%" valign="top"><a href="/p/net/esv/2_kings/23.shtml" style="color:#001320" title="Parallel Chapters"> Par ▾ </a></tr></table></div><div class="chap"><p class="title">The King Institutes Religious Reform</p><p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-1.htm"><b>1</b></a></span>The king summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-2.htm"><b>2</b></a></span>The king went up to the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-3.htm"><b>3</b></a></span>The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant before the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>, agreeing to follow the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being, by carrying out the terms of this covenant recorded on this scroll. All the people agreed to keep the covenant.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-4.htm"><b>4</b></a></span>The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, and the guards to bring out of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. The king burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-5.htm"><b>5</b></a></span>He eliminated the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.) <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-6.htm"><b>6</b></a></span>He removed the Asherah pole from the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-7.htm"><b>7</b></a></span>He tore down the quarters of the male cultic prostitutes in the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple, where women were weaving shrines for Asherah.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-8.htm"><b>8</b></a></span>He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. He tore down the high place of the goat idols situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-9.htm"><b>9</b></a></span>(Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-10.htm"><b>10</b></a></span>The king ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-11.htm"><b>11</b></a></span>He removed from the entrance to the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple the statues of horses that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-12.htm"><b>12</b></a></span>The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple. He crushed them up and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-13.htm"><b>13</b></a></span>The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-14.htm"><b>14</b></a></span>He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah pole, and filled those shrines with human bones.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-15.htm"><b>15</b></a></span>He also tore down the altar in Bethel at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-16.htm"><b>16</b></a></span>When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-17.htm"><b>17</b></a></span>He asked, “What is this grave marker I see?” The men from the city replied, “It’s the grave of the prophet who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel.” <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-18.htm"><b>18</b></a></span>The king said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-19.htm"><b>19</b></a></span>Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>. He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-20.htm"><b>20</b></a></span>He sacrificed all the priests of the high places on the altars located there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-21.htm"><b>21</b></a></span>The king ordered all the people, “Observe the Passover of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> your God, as prescribed in this scroll of the covenant.” <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-22.htm"><b>22</b></a></span>He issued this edict because a Passover like this had not been observed since the days of the judges; it was neglected for the entire period of the kings of Israel and Judah. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-23.htm"><b>23</b></a></span>But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, such a Passover of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> was observed in Jerusalem.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-24.htm"><b>24</b></a></span>Josiah also got rid of the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s temple. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-25.htm"><b>25</b></a></span>No king before or after repented before the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> as he did, with his whole heart, soul, and being in accordance with the whole law of Moses.</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-26.htm"><b>26</b></a></span>Yet the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span>’s great anger against Judah did not subside; he was still infuriated by all the things Manasseh had done. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-27.htm"><b>27</b></a></span>The <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> announced, “I will also spurn Judah, just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose – both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, “I will live there.”</p> <p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-28.htm"><b>28</b></a></span>The rest of the events of Josiah’s reign and all his accomplishments are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-29.htm"><b>29</b></a></span>During Josiah’s reign Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched toward the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to fight him, but Necho killed him at Megiddo when he saw him. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-30.htm"><b>30</b></a></span>His servants transported his dead body from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head, and made him king in his father’s place.</p> <p class="title">Jehoahaz’s Reign over Judah</p><p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-31.htm"><b>31</b></a></span>Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-32.htm"><b>32</b></a></span>He did evil in the sight of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> as his ancestors had done. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-33.htm"><b>33</b></a></span>Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem. He imposed on the land a special tax of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-34.htm"><b>34</b></a></span>Pharaoh Necho made Josiah’s son Eliakim king in Josiah’s place, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-35.htm"><b>35</b></a></span>Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho.</p> <p class="title">Jehoiakim’s Reign over Judah</p><p class="bodytext"><span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-36.htm"><b>36</b></a></span>Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah. <span class="reftext"><a href="/2_kings/23-37.htm"><b>37</b></a></span>He did evil in the sight of the <span class="smallcaps">Lord</span> as his ancestors had done.</p></div></div><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center"><a href="http://netbible.com/">NET Bible copyright © 1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com.<br />Used by permission. 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