14. He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the sacred poles, filling the places where they had been with human bones.
15. Josiah also tore down the altar that was in Bethel. That was the shrine made by Jeroboam, Nebat’s son, who caused Israel to sin. Josiah tore down that altar and its shrine. He burned the shrine, grinding it into dust. Then he burned its sacred pole.
16. When Josiah turned around, he noticed tombs up on the hillside. So he ordered the bones to be taken out of the tombs. He then burned them on the altar, desecrating it. (This was in agreement with the word that the Lord announced by the man of God when Jeroboam stood by the altar at the festival.) Josiah then turned and saw the tomb of the man of God who had predicted these things.
17. "What’s this gravestone I see?" Josiah asked.The people of the city replied, "That tomb belongs to the man of God who came from Judah and announced what you would do to the altar of Bethel."
18. "Let it be," Josiah said. "No one should disturb his bones." So they left his bones untouched, along with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.
19. Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines on the high hills that the Israelite kings had constructed throughout the cities of Samaria. These had made the Lord angry. Josiah did to them just what he did at Bethel.
20. He actually slaughtered on those altars all the priests of the shrines who were there, and he burned human bones on them. Then Josiah returned to Jerusalem.
21. The king commanded all the people, "Celebrate a Passover to the Lord your God following what is instructed in this scroll containing the covenant."
22. A Passover like this hadn’t been celebrated since the days when the judges judged Israel; neither had it been celebrated during all the days of the Israelite and Judean kings.
23. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s rule, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.
24. Josiah burned those who consulted dead spirits and the mediums, the household gods and the worthless idols—all the monstrous things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way Josiah fulfilled the words of the Instruction written in the scroll that the priest Hilkiah found in the Lord’s temple.
25. There’s never been a king like Josiah, whether before or after him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, all his being, and all his strength, in agreement with everything in the Instruction from Moses.
26. Even so, the Lord didn’t turn away from the great rage that burned against Judah on account of all that Manasseh had done to make him angry.
27. The Lord said, "I will remove Judah from my presence just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city, Jerusalem, which I chose, and this temple where I promised my name would reside."
28. The rest of Josiah’s deeds and all that he accomplished, aren’t they written in the official records of Judah’s kings?
29. In his days, the Egyptian king Pharaoh Neco marched against the Assyrian king at the Euphrates River. King Josiah marched out to intercept him. But when Neco encountered Josiah in Megiddo, he killed the king.
30. Josiah’s servants took his body from Megiddo in a chariot. They brought him to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz, Josiah’s son, anointed him, and made him king after his father.
31. Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal; she was Jeremiah’s daughter and was from Libnah.
32. He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, just as all his ancestors had done.
33. Pharaoh Neco made Jehoahaz a prisoner at Riblah in the land of Hamath, ending his rule in Jerusalem. Pharaoh Neco imposed a fine on the land totaling one hundred kikkars of silver and one kikkar of gold.
34. Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim, Josiah’s son, king after his father Josiah. Neco changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Jehoahaz away; he later died in Egypt.