13. Josiah desecrated the altars that King Solomon had built east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Olives, for the worship of disgusting idols — Astarte the goddess of Sidon, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Molech the god of Ammon.
14. King Josiah broke the stone pillars to pieces, cut down the symbols of the goddess Asherah, and the ground where they had stood he covered with human bones.
15. Josiah also tore down the place of worship in Bethel which had been built by King Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into sin. Josiah pulled down the altar, broke its stones into pieces, and pounded them to dust; he also burnt the image of Asherah.
16. Then Josiah looked round and saw some tombs there on the hill; he had the bones taken out of them and burnt on the altar. In this way he desecrated the altar, doing what the prophet had predicted long before during the festival as King Jeroboam was standing by the altar. King Josiah looked round and saw the tomb of the prophet who had made this prediction.
17. “Whose tomb is that?” he asked.The people of Bethel answered, “It is the tomb of the prophet who came from Judah and predicted these things that you have done to this altar.”
18. “Leave it as it is,” Josiah ordered. “His bones are not to be moved.”So his bones were not moved, neither were those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.
19. In every city of Israel King Josiah tore down all the pagan places of worship which had been built by the kings of Israel, who thereby aroused the Lord's anger. He did to all those altars what he had done in Bethel.
20. He killed all the pagan priests on the altars where they served, and he burnt human bones on every altar. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21. King Josiah ordered the people to celebrate the Passover in honour of the Lord their God, as written in the book of the covenant.
22. No Passover like this one had ever been celebrated by any of the kings of Israel or of Judah, since the time when judges ruled the nation.
23. Now at last, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah, the Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem.
24. In order to enforce the laws written in the book that the High Priest Hilkiah had found in the Temple, King Josiah removed from Jerusalem and the rest of Judah all the mediums and fortune tellers, and all the household gods, idols, and all other pagan objects of worship.
25. There had never been a king like him before, who served the Lord with all his heart, mind, and strength, obeying all the Law of Moses; nor has there been a king like him since.
26. But the Lord's fierce anger had been aroused against Judah by what King Manasseh had done, and even now it did not die down.