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2 Kings 23: Josiah’s Reforms and Confession – Clear & Engaging Audio Bible Reading | Removing Idols, Restoring Worship, and Repentance
Experience the compelling events of 2 Kings 23 with this clear and engaging audio recording. Follow the story of Josiah’s reforms as he removes all the idols and restores worship of the true God, discovers the book of the law, and leads the people in a great confession of sin and repentance. Perfect for study, reflection, or meditation, immerse yourself in this powerful chapter and let the Scriptures come alive.
2 KINGS 23 (NIV)
1 Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.
2 He
went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the
greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant,
which had been found in the temple of the Lord.
3 The king stood by the pillar
and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and
keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul,
thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the
people pledged themselves to the covenant.
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the
doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for
Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in
the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel.
5 He did away
with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on
the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who
burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all
the starry hosts.
6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to
the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to
powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.
7 He also
tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple
of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
8 Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the
high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He
broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city
governor, which was on the left of the city gate.
9 Although the priests of
the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate
unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10 He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one
could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek.
11 He
removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings
of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the court near the room of an
official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the
sun.
12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near
the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of
the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and
threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley.
13 The king also desecrated the high
places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the
ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the
Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god
of the people of Ammon.
14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the
Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.
15 Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who
had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He
burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole
also.
16 Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there
on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to
defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of
God who foretold these things.
17 The king asked, “What is that tombstone I see?”
The people of the city said, “It marks the tomb of the man of God who came
from Judah and pronounced against the altar of Bethel the very things you have
done to it.”
18 “Leave it alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they
spared his bones and those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19 Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed all the shrines at the high
places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had
aroused the Lord’s anger.
20 Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high
places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to
Jerusalem.
21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the
Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.”
22 Neither in
the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel
and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed.
23 But in the
eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in
Jerusalem.
24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household
gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and
Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the
book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord.
25
Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the
Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his
strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
26 Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger,
which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to arouse his
anger.
27 So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from my presence as I
removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this
temple, about which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”
28 As for the other events of Josiah’s reign, and all he did, are they not
written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
29 While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates
River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in
battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.
30 Josiah’s servants
brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his
own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed
him and made him king in place of his father.
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in
Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah;
she was from Libnah.
32 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his
predecessors had done.
33 Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the
land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on
Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
34 Pharaoh
Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and
changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off
to Egypt, and there he died.
35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Necho the silver and
gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver
and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in
Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she
was from Rumah.
37 And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his
predecessors had done.