14. Josiah crushed the sacred stones, cut down the poles dedicated to Asherah, and filled their places with human bones.
15. He also tore down the altar at Bethel—the place of worship made by Jer o boam (Nebat’s son), who had made Israel sin. He tore down both the altar and the place of worship. They burned the worship site, crushing it to powder and burning the pole dedicated to Asherah.
16. When Josiah turned and saw the tombs on the hill there, he sent men to take the bones out of the tombs and burn them on the altar to make it unclean. This fulfilled the word of the Lord announced by the man of God.
17. Then he asked, “What is this monument that I see?”The people of the city answered him, “It’s the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah to announce that you would do these things to the altar of Bethel.”
18. So Josiah said, “Let him rest. Don’t disturb his bones.” So they left his bones with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19. Josiah also got rid of all the temples at the illegal places of worship in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had built these places to make the Lord furious. He did to them everything that he had done to the worship places at Bethel.
20. He slaughtered all the priests of the illegal worship sites on their altars and then burned human bones on them. He went back to Jerusalem.
21. The king ordered all the people to celebrate the Passover for the Lord their God as it is written in this Book of the Promise.
22. The Passover had never been celebrated like this during the time of the judges who governed Israel or during the entire time of the kings of Israel and Judah.
23. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, this Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem for the Lord.
24. Josiah also got rid of the mediums, psychics, family idols, other idols, and disgusting gods that could be seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to confirm the words of the Teachings written in the book that the priest Hilkiah found in the Lord’s temple.
25. No king before Josiah had turned to the Lord with all his heart, soul, and strength, as directed in Moses’ Teachings. No other ⌊king⌋ was like Josiah.
26. But the Lord still didn’t turn his hot, burning anger from Judah. After all, Manasseh had done all these things to make him furious.
27. The Lord had said, “I will put Judah out of my sight as I put Israel out of my sight. I will reject Jerusalem, the city that I chose, and I will reject the temple where I said my name would be.”
28. Isn’t everything else about Josiah—everything he did—written in the official records of the kings of Judah?
29. In Josiah’s days Pharaoh Necoh (the king of Egypt) came to help the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. King Josiah went to attack Necoh. When Pharaoh saw him at Megiddo, Pharaoh killed him.
30. His officers put his dead body in a chariot and brought it from Megiddo to Jerusalem. They buried Josiah in his tomb.Then the people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father.
31. Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he was king for 3 months in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.
32. He did what the Lord considered evil, as his ancestors had done.