Yet every nation was making their gods, and they put them in the shrine of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they [were] living.

The Arvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; the Sepharvites were burning their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim.

Those who were fearing Yahweh made priests of the high places {from among themselves}, and they were sacrificing for them in the shrines of the high places.

Yahweh they were fearing, but their gods they were serving, according to the customs of the nations from which they were deported.

Howbeit they hearkened not, - but, according to their own former custom, were they offering.

So these nations were fearing Yahweh, but they were serving their idols, as were their children and their children's children; as their ancestors did, they [are] doing until this day.

He removed the high places, and he smashed the stone pillars; he cut down the poles of Asherah worship and demolished the bronze serpent which Moses had made, for up to those days the {Israelites} were offering incense to it and called it Nehushtan.

He trusted in Jehovah the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among any that were before him.

And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish, with a strong force, against king Hezekiah, to Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller's field.

The people were silent, and they did not answer him a word, for the command of that king was saying, "You shall not answer him."

When the servants of king Hezekiah were come to Isaiah,

The messengers were told, "This is what you are to say to King Hezekiah of Judah: "Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you by telling you "Jerusalem won't be turned over to the control of Assyria's king."

Did the gods of the nations that my {predecessors} destroyed deliver them? [Not] Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, [nor] the children of Eden who [were] in Tel Assar.

and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore have they destroyed them.

And their inhabitants were powerless, They were dismayed and put to shame; They were as the growing grass, and as the green herb, As the grass on the housetops, and grain blighted before it be grown up.

It happened in that night that an angel of Yahweh went out, and he struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of Assyria. When they got up early in the morning, look! All of them [were] dead corpses.

And from thy sons which shall go forth from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall be taken; and they were eunuchs in the temple of the king of Babel.

"Because Manasseh the king of Judah committed these detestable things [and] did evil more than the Amorites did who were before him and caused even Judah to sin with his idols,

And I thrust out the remainder of my inheritance, and I gave them into the hand of their enemies; and they were for plunder and for a prey to all their enemies.

because they have done evil in my eyes and were provoking me from the day that their ancestors came out from Egypt up to this day.'"

Howbeit there used to be no reckoning made with them, as to the silver that was given into their hand, - because, with faithfulness, were they dealing.

Then the king sent, - and there were gathered unto him, all the elders of Judah, and Jerusalem;

Then the king went up [to] the temple of Yahweh, and all of the men of Judah and all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem [were] with him, [including] the priests, the prophets, and all of the people from smallest to greatest; and in their {hearing} he read all of the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the temple of Yahweh.

The king stood by the pillar, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all [his] heart, and all [his] soul, to confirm the words of this covenant that were written in this book: and all the people stood to the covenant.

The king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring forth out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the army of the sky, and he burned them outside of Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.

And he took the Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem to the stream Kidron, burning it by the stream and crushing it to dust, and he put the dust on the place where the bodies of the common people were put to rest.

He tore down the shrines of the male shrine prostitutes which were in the temple of Yahweh, where the women were weaving shrines for the Asherah.

Then he brought all of the priests from the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests from Geba up to Beersheba burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates which were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on the left of each gate of the city.

However, the priests of the high places were not allowed to go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem [to serve], but they ate unleavened bread among their brothers.

He removed from the entrance to the Lord's temple the statues of horses that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.

The altars which [were] on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the temple of Yahweh, the king tore down and ran from there and threw their ashes into the Wadi Kidron.

The high places which [were] east of Jerusalem, which [were] on the south of the Mountain of Destruction which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the detestable thing of the {Ammonites}, the king defiled.

The stone pillars were broken to bits and the wood pillars cut down, and the places where they had been were made full of the bones of the dead

And the altar at Beth-el, and the high place put up by Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel do evil, that altar and that high place were pulled down; and the high place was burned and crushed to dust and the Asherah was burned.

When Josiah turned and saw the tombs which [were] there on the hill, he sent and took the bones from the tombs and burned [them] on the altar. [Thus] he defiled them according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God had proclaimed who had proclaimed these things.

Moreover, all of the shrines of the high places which [were] in the towns of Samaria which the kings of Israel had made to provoke [Yahweh], Josiah removed, and he did to them like all of the deeds he had done in Bethel

Then he slaughtered all of the priests of the high places who [were] there, on the altars, and he burned the bones of the humans on them. Then he returned [to] Jerusalem.

Moreover, the mediums and the spiritists, the household gods and the idols, and all of the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah removed in order to establish the words of the law written on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found [in] the temple of Yahweh.

Then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city [while] his servants were besieging it.

And he took away all the people of Jerusalem and all the chiefs and all the men of war, ten thousand prisoners; and all the expert workmen and the metal-workers; only the poorest sort of the people of the land were not taken away.

And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and artificers and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

For it happened because of the anger of Yahweh, in Jerusalem and in Judah, until they were cast out from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Then the city was breached, and all of the men of war [entered] by night by way of the gate between the wall which was by the garden of the king, and the Chaldeans [were] against the city all around, so he left by the way of the Arabah.

And the army of the Chaldees pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him.

Zedekiah's sons were executed while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon then had Zedekiah's eyes put out, bound him in bronze chains, and carried him off to Babylon.

He and all the army of [the] Chaldeans who [were with] the imperial guard tore down the wall of Jerusalem all around.

And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard carried away captive the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the deserters that had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

The bronze pillars which [were in] the temple of Yahweh, the water carts, and the bronze sea that was in the temple of Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke into pieces and carried their bronze to Babylon.

They also confiscated the pots, shovels, snuffers, spoons, and the rest of the bronze vessels that were used in ministry.

And the fire-pans, and the bowls, and such things as were of gold, in gold, and of silver, in silver, the captain of the guard took away.

The height of the one pillar [was] eighteen cubits; a bronze capital was on it, with the height of the capital [being] three cubits. The latticework and pomegranates on the capital all around were bronze, and likewise on the latticework for the second pillar.

From the city he took one court official who [was] chief officer over the men of war, five men {from the king's council} who were found in the city, the secretary of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men from the people of the land being found in the city.

As for the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, governor.

All of the officers of the Judahite army and their troops heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah to govern. So they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The officers who came were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite.

But it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama from the offspring of the kingship came, and ten men with him, and they struck down Gedaliah so that he died with the Judeans and with the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

Then all the people, from youngest to oldest, and the commanders of the troops, went [to] Egypt, for they were afraid of the presence of the Chaldeans.

He spoke {kindly} to him, and he gave him a better seat than the seat of the kings who [were] with him in Babylon.