King Jehoash of Judah collected all the sacred items that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had consecrated, as well as his own sacred items and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord's temple and the royal palace. He sent it all to King Hazael of Syria, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.

For Jozacar (Jozachar) the son of Shimeath and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him and he died; and they buried Joash with his fathers in the City of David. Amaziah his son became king in his place.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin; he departed not from them.

Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin: they walked therein; and there remained also the Asherah in Samaria.)

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah; he departed not from any of the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: he walked therein.

He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Jehoaddan, who was from Jerusalem.

And it came to pass that, as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, he smote his servants who smote the king his father;

And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah: he departed not from any of the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

He, restored the boundary of Israel, from the entering in of Hamath, unto the sea of the waste plain, - according to the word of Yahweh, God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher.

For the Lord saw how bitter was the trouble of Israel, and that everyone was cut off, he who was shut up and he who went free, and that Israel had no helper.

He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jecholiah, who was from Jerusalem.

The LORD struck the king so that he was afflicted with leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house while his son Jotham managed the household and ruled the people who lived in the land.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

At that time Menahem came from Tirzah and attacked Tiphsah. He struck down all who lived in the city and the surrounding territory, because they would not surrender. He even ripped open the pregnant women.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah: he departed not, all his days, from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, of all those who were wealthy, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

Only, the high places were not removed: the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. It was he who built the upper gate of the house of Jehovah.

but walked in the way of the kings of Israel, - moreover also, me made, his son, pass through the fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations, whom Yahweh dispossessed from before the sons of Israel;

So Ahaz sent messengers unto Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, Thy servant and thy son, I am, - Come up and save me, out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.

He removed from the house of the Lord the covered way for the Sabbath which they had built in the house, and the outer entrance of the king, because of the king of Assyria [who might confiscate them].

And he did the thing that was wicked in the eyes of Yahweh, - only, not like the kings of Israel who were before him.

But the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, who had sent messengers to So king of Egypt and had offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year; so the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.

And thus it came to pass that Israel sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, - yea they did reverence to other gods;

and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel, - and in the statutes of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

and burned incense there, in all the high places, like the nations whom Yahweh drave out from before them, - and did things that were wicked, so as to provoke Yahweh to anger;

And Yahweh testified against Israel and against Judah, through all his prophets - every one who had a vision, saying - Turn ye from your wicked ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers; and which I sent unto you through my servants the prophets.

But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God.

And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and went after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them.

For Israel was broken off from the family of David, and they made Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, king, who, driving them away from the laws of the Lord, made them do a great sin.

until the LORD removed Israel from his presence, just as he had warned through all of his prophets who served him. So Israel was carried off into exile from their own land into Assyria, where they remain to this day.

And it happened at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear Jehovah. And Jehovah sent lions among them, who killed them.

Therefore spake they unto the king of Assyria, saying, The nations whom thou hast removed and settled in the cities of Samaria, know not the custom of the God of the land, - and he hath sent among them lions, and lo! they are slaying them, because they know not the custom of the God of the land.

And the king of Assyria commanded saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye have brought away from thence; and let them go and abide there, and let him teach them the manner of the god of the land.

Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and abode in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Jehovah.

So they feared Jehovah, and made to themselves from all classes of them priests of the high places, who offered sacrifices for them in the houses of the high places.

They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.

To this day they do after their former customs: they fear not Jehovah, neither do they after their statutes or after their ordinances, nor after the law and commandment that Jehovah commanded the sons of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

With, whom, Yahweh solemnised a covenant, and commanded them saying - Ye shall not revere other gods, - nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them;

but Jehovah alone, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched-out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice.

And you are to give worship to the Lord your God; for it is he who will give you salvation from the hands of all who are against you.

He had faith in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah who were before him.

King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, "I have violated our treaty. If you leave, I will do whatever you demand." So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

And they called to the king. Then came forth to them Eliakim the son of Hilkijah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the chronicler.

Thou sayest but it is a word of the lips There is counsel and strength for war. Now on whom dost thou rely, that thou hast revolted against me?

Now, lo! thou dost trust thyself on the support of this bruised cane, on Egypt, whereon, if a man lean, it will enter his hand and lay it open, - so, is Pharaoh king of Egypt, to all who trust upon him.

Perhaps you will tell me, 'We are trusting in the Lord our God.' But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.'

And have I now come up to send destruction on this place without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.

Then said Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, unto Rab-shakeh: Speak, we pray thee, unto thy servants in the, Syrian, language, for, we, can, understand, it, - and do not speak with us in, the Jews', language, in the ears of the people who are upon the wall.

But Rab-shakeh said unto them - Is it, concerning thy lord, and concerning thee, that my lord hath sent me to speak these things? Is it not concerning the men who are tarrying upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own water with you?

Which are they among all the gods of the countries, who have delivered their country out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

And Eliakim the son of Hilkijah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the chronicler, came to Hezekiah with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rab-shakeh.

And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.

It may be Jehovah thy God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God; and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left.

who said to them, “Tell your master this, ‘The Lord says: Don’t be afraid because of the words you have heard, that the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed Me with.

Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah saying: Let not thy God, upon whom thou reliest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Did the gods of the nations, deliver them, whom my fathers destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, - and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who were in Telassar?

And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord.

And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah and said, Jehovah, God of Israel, who sittest between the cherubim, thou, the Same, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made the heavens and the earth.

Incline thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open, Jehovah, thine eyes, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent him to reproach the living God.

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted the voice? Against the Holy one of Israel hast thou lifted up thine eyes on high.

Those who remain in Judah will take root in the ground and bear fruit.

For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done.

So Isaiah cried out to the LORD, who brought the shadow back ten steps after it had gone down the stairway of Ahaz.

And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, whom thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be chamberlains in the palace of the king of Babylon.

And he did the thing that was wicked in the eyes of Yahweh, - after the abominable practices of the nations, whom Yahweh had dispossessed from before the sons of Israel.

And he made his son go through the fire, and made use of secret arts and signs for reading the future; he gave positions to those who had control of spirits and to wonder-workers; he did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath.

But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel.

Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols;

So this is what the Lord God of Israel says, 'I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it.

And I will put away from me the rest of my heritage, and give them up into the hands of their haters, who will take their property and their goods for themselves;

Then the people of the land smote all who had conspired against King Amon, - and the people of the land made, Josiah his son, king, in his stead.

"Go to the high priest Hilkiah, so he can count the money that has been brought into the LORD's Temple by the doorkeepers who have been gathering it from the people.

that they may give it into the hand of the doers of the work, who have oversight of the house of Yahweh, that they may give it to the doers of the work, who are in the house of Yahweh, to repair the breaches of the house;

Do not audit the foremen who disburse the silver, for they are honest."

Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

Then came Shaphan the scribe unto the king, and brought the king word again, - and said - Thy servants have poured out the silver that was found in the house, and have delivered it unto the hand of the doers of the work, who have oversight of the house of Yahweh.

So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to the prophet Huldah, the wife of Tikvah's son Shallum, the grandson of Harhas and supervisor of the royal wardrobe, who lived in the Second Quarter in Jerusalem. They spoke with her,

And she said unto them, Thus, saith Yahweh, God of Israel, Say ye unto the man who hath sent you unto me:

But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of Jehovah, thus shall ye say to him: Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel touching the words which thou hast heard:

The king went up to the LORD's Temple, accompanied by all the men of Judah, everyone who lived in Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone including those who were unimportant and those who were important and he read to them everything written in the Book of the Covenant that had been discovered in the LORD's Temple.

And he abolished the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and the environs of Jerusalem; and them that burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

Josiah brought out the Asherah from the house of the Lord to the Brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, and burned it there, and ground it to dust, and threw its dust on the graves of the common people [who had sacrificed to it].

And he had the houses pulled down of those who were used for sex purposes in the house of the Lord, where women were making robes for the Asherah.

He took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the room of Nathan Melech the officer, who was in the court; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down; and burned the high place, stamped it small to powder, and burned the Asherah.

And Josiah turned himself, and saw the sepulchres that were there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Jehovah, that the man of God had proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.

Then he said, What tombstone is that which I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these things which thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

And he said - Let him rest, let, no man, disturb his bones. So they let his bones rest, with the bones of the prophet who came in out of Samaria.

and he sacrificed all the priests of the high places, who were there, by the altars, and burned human bones thereupon, - and returned to Jerusalem.

Surely there had not been held such a passover as this, from the days of the Judges who judged Israel, - nor all the days of the kings of Israel, and the kings of Judah;

Moreover also, them who had familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the household gods, and the manufactured gods, and the abominations which were to be seen in the land of Judah, and in Jerusalem, did Josiah consume, - that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of Yahweh.

And, like him, was no king, before him, who turned unto Yahweh 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 one, like him.

As a result, Jehoiakim paid the silver and gold tribute to Pharaoh, but he passed on the costs to the inhabitants of the land in taxes, in keeping with Pharaoh's orders. He exacted the silver and gold from the people who lived in the land, from each according to his assessment, in order to pay it to Pharaoh Neco.

During his lifetime, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jehoiakim, who became his vassal for three years, after which he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled.

And because of the death of those who had done no wrong, for he made Jerusalem full of the blood of the upright; and the Lord had no forgiveness for it.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up against the city, along with his servants, who besieged it.

He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land.