My Daily Meditation
Today’s Reading
The Second Book of Kings
Chapter 23:1-37
1 Then the King sent, and there gathered unto him all the Elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 And the king went up into the house of the Lord, with all the men of Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the Priests and Prophets, and all the people both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant, which was found in the house of the Lord.
3 And the king stood by the pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, that they should walk after the Lord, and keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all their heart, and with all their soul, that they might accomplish the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
4 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high Priest, and the Priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven, and he burnt them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the powder of them into Bethel.
5 And he put down the Chemarims, whom the kings of Judah had founded to burn incense in the high places, and in the cities of Judah and about Jerusalem, and also them that burnt incense unto Baal, to the sun and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the grove from the Temple of the Lord, without Jerusalem unto the valley of Kidron, and burnt it in the valley Kidron, and stamped it to powder, and cast the dust thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
7 And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8 Also he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the Priests had burnt incense, even from Geba to Beersheba, and destroyed the high places of the gates, that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which was at the left hand of the gate of the city.
9 Nevertheless the Priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, save only they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
10 He defiled also Topheth, which was in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man should make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Molech.
11 He put down also the horses that the Kings of Judah had given to the sun at the entering in of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of Nethan-Melech the eunuch, which was ruler of the suburbs, and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 And the altars that were on the top of the chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord did the king break down, and hasted thence, and cast the dust of them in the brook Kidron.
13 Moreover the King defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, and on the right hand of the mount of corruption (which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the idol of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the idol of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon)
14 And he brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15 Furthermore the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place made by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin, both this altar and also the high place, brake he down, and burnt the high place, and stamped it to powder and burnt the grove.
16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the graves that were in the mount, and sent and took the bones out of the graves, and burnt them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord, that the man of God proclaimed, which cried the same words.
17 Then he said, What title is that which I see? And the men of the city said unto him, It is the sepulcher of the man of God, which came from Judah, and told these things that thou hast done to the altar of Bethel.
18 Then said he, Let him alone: let none remove his bones. So his bones were saved with the bones of the Prophet that came from Samaria.
19 Josiah also took away all the houses of the high places, which were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to anger the Lord, and did to them according to all the facts that he had done in Bethel.
20 And he sacrificed all the Priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burnt men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
21 Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
22 And there was no Passover holden like that from the days of the Judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, and of the kings of Judah.
23 And in the eighteenth year of King Josiah was this Passover celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem.
24 Josiah also took away them that had familiar spirits, and the soothsayers, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were espied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, to perform the words of the Law, which were written in the book that Hilkiah the Priest found in the house of the Lord.
25 Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might according to all the Law of Moses, neither after him arose there any like him.
26 Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith he was angry against Judah, because of all the provocations wherewith Manasseh had provoked him.
27 Therefore the Lord said, I will put Judah also out of my sight, as I have put away Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house whereof I said, My name shall be there.
28 Concerning the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?
29 In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Perath. And king Josiah went against him, whom when Pharaoh saw, he slew him at Megiddo.
30 Then his servants carried him dead from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulcher. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father’s stead.
31 Jehoahaz was three and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
32 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
33 And Pharaoh Necho put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath while he reigned in Jerusalem, and put the land to a tribute of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.
34 And Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king instead of Josiah his father, and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away, which when he came to Egypt, died there.
35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, and taxed the land to give the money, according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he levied of every man of the people of the land, according to his value, silver and gold to give unto Pharaoh Necho.
36 Jehoiakim was five and twenty years old, when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Zebudah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
37 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.
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