And the king stood on the dais, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart, and with all his soul, to establish the words of this covenant that are written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

And the king commanded Hilkijah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, to bring forth out of the temple of Jehovah all the vessels that had been made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of the heavens; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them to Bethel.

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.

And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

and be brought in all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where, the priests, had burned incense, from Geba unto Beer-sheba, - and brake down the high places of the gates, that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city, which were on one's left hand, in the gate of the city;

howbeit, the priests of the high places came not up unto the altar of Yahweh, in Jerusalem, save only that they did eat unleavened bread in the midst of their brethren;

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, that no man might cause his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

And he abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had appointed to the sun at the entrance of the house of Jehovah, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun, with fire.

And the king broke down the altars that were on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Jehovah, and he shattered them, removing them from thence, and cast the powder of them into the torrent of Kidron.

And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

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 alone; let no man move his bones. And they saved his bones, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke Jehovah to anger, Josiah removed, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.

And he sacrificed upon the altars all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned men's bones upon them. And he returned to Jerusalem.

For there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;

Moreover the necromancers and the soothsayers, and the teraphim and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah.

And before him there had been no king like him that turned to Jehovah 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 his like.

Notwithstanding the LORD turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.

The Lord announced, "I will also spurn Judah, just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose -- both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, "I will live there."

And 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?

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.

And Pharaoh-Nechoh had him bound at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and laid a tribute upon the land of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

And, the silver and the gold, did Jehoiakim give unto Pharaoh, howbeit he assessed the land, that he might give the silver at the bidding of Pharaoh, - every man, according to his assessment, exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, that he might give it to Pharaoh-necoh.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.

So Yahweh sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, raiding bands of Aram, raiding bands of Moab, and raiding bands of the {Ammonites}. He had sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Yahweh that he had spoken by the hand of his servants the prophets.

Verily, at the commandment of Jehovah it came to pass against Judah, that they should be removed out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done;

and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Jehovah would not pardon.

And the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt, from the torrent of Egypt to the river Euphrates.

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father had done.

At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

And he brought out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Jehovah, as Jehovah had said.

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

And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

For, it was because the anger of Yahweh had come against Jerusalem, and against Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled, against the king of Babylon.

And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built turrets against it round about.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.

The enemy broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king's garden. (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.

In the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, that is, the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, a commander of the imperial guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came [to] Jerusalem.

And all the army of the Chaldeans that were with the captain of the body-guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about.

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.

And the brazen pillars that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of Jehovah, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the brass thereof to Babylon.

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

And the censers and the bowls, that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, the captain of the body-guard took away.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord's temple -- including the two pillars, the big bronze basin called "The Sea," the twelve bronze bulls under "The Sea," and the movable stands -- was too heavy to be weighed.

And out of the city he took a chamberlain that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king's presence, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the host, who enrolled the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land that were found in the city.

And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left behind, over them he appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.

And all the captains of the forces, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, and they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, namely, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of a Maachathite, they and their men.

And it came to pass, in the seventh month, that Ishmael son of Nethaniah a son of Elishama, of the seed royal, came, and ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah, that he died, - and the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

And it came to pass, in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, - that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, out of prison;

and he spoke kindly to him, and set his seat above the seat of the kings that were with him in Babylon.